#poor haxorus though

[choochooboss]

Sygna parade!

Alt version!

Ok first, I need to scream:

I LOVE THE SYGNA SUITS

THE FRILLS!! THE FASHION!! THE NOD TO OLD FASHIONED TRAIN CONDUCTOR SUITS FROM 1800’S!!THE ELECTRIC LANTERNS ARE SO CLEVER!!

POKEMAS EMBRACED THE YELLOW AND PURPLE WE LOVE TO ASSOCIATE THEM WITH AND IT MAKES ME SO HAPPY!!

THE BOOTS! THE FLOWER SLEEVES! THE BLACK COLLAR SHIRT ON EMMET! THE STRIPED TIGHTS!

*ahem*

The designs fast drew my mind into marching bands so I went for this idea first ahah! At some point I watched a ton of marching band videos, they cheered me up with the exciting and very complex perfomances and the players enthusiam was so catchy!! Also watching the 1st person POVs of i.e. the trumpet and drum players are super fun ahaha! Combined with the striking costumes all this directly reminded me of submas, and now it’s a thing!!!

[leggerefiore]

Heyo, for the Christmas season, how do you think Ingo and Emmet celebrate? With or without an s/o. I imagine Chandelure either loves the lights or absolutely hates them. Joltiks latch themselves onto it. Christmas train~

my mother obsessively decorates every year and its frightening (also read excadrill pokemon y pokedex entry)

Order is: general Christmas behaviours, in a relationship, and with kids.

made santa a delibird also because I mean he is.

▲Subway Twins Christmas HCs▽

● Ingo, first of all, is heavily involved in the traditions. He is inspired by the happiness brought on around from this time in his youth. The memories of helping his mom decorate the house, cook food for the family, and wrap gifts make him feel warm inside. Of course, it's a bit lonely to just share the holiday with Emmet alone (though he doesn't necessarily mind), they do end up taking Christmas day off and go visit their parents. All the workers who worked with them on Christmas Eve and day get given gifts, however, alongside a catered meal because Ingo feels awful that the needed to separate them from their family.

○ Emmet, on the other hand, is indifferent. He enjoys the giving and receiving aspect and the time off to enjoy with his family, but he's just… Not really as driven as his brother is. Ingo nearly cried when Emmet volunteered to work on Christmas day one year. They just didn't have enough experienced staff, and someone needed to be there in case something went wrong.

● Ingo decorates everywhere. Emmet blinks and their apartment has a tiny tree standing off in the corner and garland wrapped around the living room walls. Gifts are tucked under the tree, and Ingo has made a fruitcake. Emmet nods and accepts this. Then he enters the station and sees a human-sized nutcracker next to a fifteen foot (4.5 metre) tree. The tree is decorated with many train related ornaments and cards left to them by riders, Emmet finds that somewhat cute. He stares blankly at the nutcracker, however, and looks around for his brother. A Delibird walks up to him and coos. (The younger twin makes a choice to avoid the nutcracker whenever possible. Its blank eyes stare into him.)

○ The Delibird, as it turns out, was a pokemon Ingo went out and captured. It's true that many children were told stories about Delibirds leaving gifts for good children during their youth, but Emmet finds himself worried about his brother's affinity toward the bird. (Thankfully it's not competitively viable, so the poor thing will not be used year round. Ingo does take wonderful care of it, however. Emmet watches the bird chill in front of their vents in the summer in mild terror.)

● Their pokemon get dragged into Ingo's madness. Chandelure is wrapped in colourful fairy lights as she floats behind her beloved trainer. Haxorus and Excadrill are given hats and duty to hand out goodies to commuters. Both eagerly do it, happy to appease their trainer. Crustle chirps as he runs around the station carrying Delibird to help it give gifts to taller people. He is wrapped with a shiny tinsel that makes him quite eye-catching. Klinklang has little to, does walk around with a glowing red nose on each of its faces. The battles during this season are quite funny. (Garbodor is tasked with waving patrons in while wearing a little a hat. It's much too small for her size and is oddly endearing.)

○ Emmet's pokemon are not immune from Ingo's decorating. Galvantula is bribed with batteries to makes web art related to Christmas, and Archeops helps hang up holiday lighting and decorations much too high for Ingo to reach. Eelektross accepts his fate when Ingo places a Stantler headband on him. Emmet screeches about this, however. His precious starter looks ridiculous! His Joltiks are also seen scuttling about with lights on them. (They are, too, bribed with batteries.) Only Durant truly resists this treatment.

▲Ingo▼

● Now, after being in a relationship, Ingo is even more impassioned, if that was at all possible. He wants off definitely to spend time with you and meet your family alongside his. His dream is to decorate the apartment with you and take a few cosy pictures, too. Ingo can die a happy man after you help him decorate the tree.

● He is, in fact, cheesy and hangs up a mistletoe. Then, the older twin never dares to request a kiss under it because he's too flustered. Though, if you're brave and give him a peck, he simply perishes. You have defeated him, and he has achieved everything he wanted in life.

● Ingo tries his best to make hot chocolate for you both while snow piles up outside from the harsh Unovan winter outside. Crustle is curled up beside you both on the couch while he turns on romantic Christmas movies. The joke you make about him going white girl crazy was not appreciated. (His hot chocolate is quite bitter, but the sweetness from the added marshmallows helps balance it out.)

● His mother eagerly tells you the story of how he realised the Delibird legend wasn't true. Apparently, little ten-year-old Ingo approached on her on Christmas even with a deathly serious expression. He motioned her down to his level, to which she obliged. The older twin then whispered into her ear that he knew she was the Delibird gifter and that the secret was safe with him for Emmet. She hasn't stopped laughing about it to this day.

● The night of Christmas day is spent quietly snuggled up against each other, with his Delibird cawing at you both and handing out the gifts you got for each other. The model train you got for Ingo made his eyes go wide and a small smile dance on his lips. His gift to you was a silver ring with a small railroad track on it. Ingo leaned toward you and pressed a similar ring on his finger to line up with yours. You grinned as you saw how they connected. He truly was a romantic.

▽Emmet△

○ He's a bit more interested in the holidays after starting to be in a long-term relationship. Emmet is still not much of a decorator, but if his partner wanted to, he'd be more than willing to help. (Ingo's betrayal is evident on his face when he finds this out.) He's more willing to take Christmas day off (though, admittedly, he's still probably on call just in case anything happens), so you get to enjoy a lazy Emmet napping on the couch with several random desserts on the coffee table. Durant is also enjoying himself. His idea of a good Christmas is exchanging presents and enjoying sweets.

○ He hangs up mistletoe like his brother, but then becomes a menace. You ARE kissing him every time you end up under it together. He will get you every single time. He's a monster about them. You'll likely have had a full make-out session under it before it's put away.

○ Emmet begs for hot chocolate. He even dares look up how to make some from scratch. It's a terrifying sight to catch the younger twin chopping chocolate up in the kitchen in an apron. His eyes even dart over to stare at you when he notices you. (Alternatively, this madness can be avoided if you make him some yourself. Or, even better, you can make it together and feed him chocolate.) His is always a bit too sweet and swirled up with whipped cream and chocolate sauce. He dearly enjoys it, so you manage your way through the concoction.

○ When you visit his family for the holidays, his father sighs as he recalls Emmet sneaking out of his room to watch him put the presents out for them. He tilted his head with his smile still on his lips when he turned around to see him. He wanted to tell him off, but he just said that Ingo doesn't need to know. (Emmet later cried about the Delibird legend not being real, but no one knows about that outside of Ingo.)

○ The chilly night of Christmas day is spent cuddled up after seeing Ingo and Elesa off. Emmet made a blanket cocoon and trapped you in it while a league battle played on the television. Just as you both began to doze off in the comfortable embrace, you jolted awake. Your gifts! You escaped the cocoon and presented your box to the sleepy man. Emmet yawned and opened it. He held the Joltik plush curiously before bursting into giggles. The younger twin handed you his own, which made you grin. Inside was an actual sleeping Joltik. You wondered why he had waited so late to wrap your gift (and left air holes). The little darling squeaked and stared up at you with purple eyes. A shiny. Emmet giggled when you pressed a kiss to the baby arachnid's head.

▲Dad Ingo▼

● He's gone feral about getting together a good holiday for little Erin. This small boy doesn't even know how much his father was excited for this. As a baby, he was put in little Delibird and Christmas themed onesies before being moved to honorary decorator (He stands there and hands Ingo ornaments.) Erin even gets to help in the kitchen, varying from handing ingredient to actually helping prepare things based on how old he is.

● Ingo excitedly tells Erin all about the Delibird tradition, while also assuring Erin that he's such a good boy that he has nothing to worry about. This means, of course, Ingo buys so many gifts for Erin and pretends it was a Delibird. Unlike Ingo, Erin doesn't stop believing in Delibird until the other parents thinks it's time to tell him.

● The holidays become Ingo's favourite of the year even more so, as he realises what he loved so much was the celebration of family. That something was his most desired dream for his entire life. He cuddles up with you and your sweet boy and lets himself be contented in the winter chill.

● “Dad…” Erin nervously squeaked at Ingo, who looked up from his laptop. Clearing his throat, Ingo replied, “Yes, Erin?” The boy gazed down at the floor nervously and swallowed. “I know you are the Delibird. Uncle Emmet told me.” Ingo proceeded to simply perishes. Betrayed once more by the man he shared a womb with.

▽Dad Emmet△

○ Now he's holiday crazy. It's awakened. Two identical girls have made him want to celebrate Christmas. He hates being on-call now. Emma and Inka are his darling little girls who go between being dressed in some of the goofiest onesies to dresses (and pants, sometimes in Inka's case). He decorates and lets Emma order him around on where to put things, while Inka tries to climb their tree. The girls enjoy his sugary sweet hot chocolate, and now you're outnumbered 3 to 1. A cruel world you live in.

○ Emmet does tell his girls about the Delibird tradition, but they seem only partially curious. He coos that they're so sweet and cute that no Delibird would ever find them naughty (much unlike the many times his teachers and parents assured him he was being bad). This is later proven wrong when Inka nearly sets the house on fire and Emma fights a kid at school (who was being mean to Inka, in her defence). Emma and Inka stop believing when they set out to watch the Delibird bring them their gifts. They only see Emmet.

○ The holidays are absolutely his beloved time of year. He gets to spend time with his partner and sweet girls. He truly only settled down because he felt like he was getting older, and it was the natural progression in his life. He smiles when he brings his cups of hot chocolate into the living room and sees each girl on either side of you watching a league battle. Inka points out mistakes and Emma whines she wants to watch a contest instead.

○ Emmet stared at the two girls before him as he was placing out the presents in distress. “You two are being verrry naughty,” he warns. Inka bursts into giggles while Emma starts crying. One believed more than the other, it seemed.

[houndfaker]

rahhhh i haven’t felt like drawing for it (i miiiight after work today?) but i have some teams picked out for the p3 pokemon au and i feel like babbling about them since ive been replaying heartgold. under da cut. a lot of the team configurations are based on a mixture of persona parallels and just vibes.

femc/kotone/minako/etc

I’ve literally redone her team a million times because I’m never satisfied with it but i forced myself to compromise on this particular configuration (she’s probably got a ton in her pc though. members that didn’t make the cut include bewear, raticate, musharna, dragapult)

blaziken represents orpheus, and duskinoir represents thanatos. the remainder are more like “i think she’d have these”. storywise in particular, plusle is a childhood pokemon matching with yuki’s minun (the protags are twins in this au as always).

yukari

these are pretty outright i think. decidueye for the obvious archery reasons (have joked that i think it’d be cute if yukari’s decidueye actually used to be very poor with its aim until she started helping it practice)

miltank being (sort of???) representative of io, and togekiss being (SORT OF???) representative of isis. (there are only so many cow/bull pokemon and a few of which im reserving for other teams)

the rest are mostly vibes based! porygon in particular is a pokemon passed down to her from her father after his death. she has a very tight bond with it.

akihiko

magnezone represents polydeuces and golurk represents caesar

the rest are mostly vibes based. aki comes off as the type of trainer who would literally fistfight his pokemon as training. his pachirisu was his sister’s first and only pokemon before she passed.

mitsuru

ceruledge represents penthesilea. empoleon Somewhat represents artemisia.

she has somewhat noble/rare pokemon to fill her team. gardevoir is a reference to her mild navigational abilities (it would be kinda funny if she was mildly psychic like sabrinabut to a lesser extent). indeedee is a pokemon she picked up at a young age, one of the first few she caught herself.

fuuka

fuuka is a coordinator as opposed to a trainer, so her team isn’t super battle-capable. lapras and musharna are meant to sort of rep lucia/juno.

i dont have heavy thoughts on her selection but i think quagsire is very close to her.

aigis

this is one of the teams that has a great number of members that relate to her personas. bastiodon, escavelier, and iron valiant are meant to represent palladion/athena. silvally is pretty much a perfect fit narratively as a partner for aigis. ninjask is there because well i think she likes it. pikachu is a match with the rest of the moonlight bridge quartet, each having an electric mouse pokemon

she’s still a robot btw. scarvio is my enabler for that being a thing within the pokemon universe

BONUS ONES THAT ARENT FOR SEES (i have not made teams for all of them because the bestie is in charge of everyone else)

you knew this was coming

kikuno

kikuno has a number of mons matching to mitsuru’s (they caught their indeedees together, for example, and gallade to gardevoir and whatnot). noctowl dodrio and lycanroc because i think she’d like them. rotoms various forms i imagine are a helpful aid for housework, and they match one another in Mischief.

chidori

I think chidoris are pretty self explanatory. very vibes based. tauros/houndoom representing medea. mesprit because we’ve been imagining each member of strega being in possession of a member of the lake trio.

labrys (she’s here too yay!!)

this one i actually wrote a compact little list for LMAO

zorua - her illusion abilitiesss

bouffalant - asterius

haxorus - her axe

aegislash - unit 024

furfrou - snowy

pheromosa - ariadne

dats all for now. we have loose plot concepts in mind but nothing concrete enough for me to explain here

[pokemonranchlife]

Mirio: Oh boy, I got a couple stories here. Let's see worst from a domestic would have to be back when I was rookie ranger, we got called in to help clear a Pokèmon hoarding situation, Cap wanted me to get hands on experience and figured it'd be a routine case.

Mirio: Turns out the old man was hoarding dark types. Took a nasty strike to the chest. Could see my ribs through the wound. Doc said I was lucky the Weavile's claws didn't pierce an organ. That's also why rookie and regular ranger uniforms have chest padding now. Still have a heck of a scar.

Mirio: The worst from a wild, Let's see that would probably be the Haxorus that chopped my leg off. I'm not sure if that still counts as domestic though. The poor girl was released into a habitat she wasn't native to and was scared half to death, poor thing had no idea how to survive in the wild, she was born in captivity. Turns out the poor kid was pressured into releasing his Pokémon by team plasma. I tracked the poor mon down and well...I don't necessarily remember exactly what happened but I woke up in the hospital pretty banged up and missing a leg. Also we did get the Haxorus back to her trainer along with his other mons.

Mirio: For truly wild, some teens chased a Numel trying to catch it. The poor thing was a baby. Turns out mama Camurept are very protective of their young so yeah, the mama used eruption to scare the teens off while I was rounding them up and I got burned pretty bad

rotomblr: reblog with the worst injury you’ve ever gotten from a pokémon, wild or domestic

[janamensch]

I told you I would make you look at more OC pokemon teams, here’s Juliett!!

[smallestapplin]

A little idea I've bounced back and forth in my head - Submas bros (separate) comforting their male (or gender neutral) s/o by telling them various facts about trains because they like listening to them talk. They're just holding them and rambling about trains because it makes them feel better.

Bonus points for their Pokemon lending a hand as well.

- Tofu Anon

2 days

Also of course you can! This is adorable. Did I look up actual facts and stories but changed a bit to pokemon? Yes, yes I did.

I went with a male reader!

-

-

⚫️Ingo⚫️

- when he came home and wasn’t greeted, or seeing you in the living room, he knew something was up.

- You always stay up to greet him, but you’re not here. Did you go out?

- Ingo continues taking his shoes off, hanging his coat and hat up before heading towards the bedroom. Where he finds you.

- His frown deepens seeing you curled in bed, you don’t even more, just stay laying away from the door.

- “Dear?” You only hum at his call.

- “Bad day?” His expression softens when you let out a pitiful whine.

- “Oh dearest, I’m sorry.” Ingo walks over to your side of the bed, sitting on the edge as he rubs your back.

- You look so tired, like you had been crying earlier.

- His poor husband.

- “Do you need anything, love?”

- You look up at him, slowly shuffling to curl around him.

- “Can you just talk? Maybe some train stuff?”

- “Of course, let me go get you a drink first.”

- When Ingo came back, he couldn’t help but chuckle at the sight before him. Seeing Crustle at your bedside, sitting on the floor, Excadrill in your arms, Chandelure hovering over you with Klinklang, and Haxorus sitting beside Crustle with her head resting on your side.

- His Pokémon adore you, and it’s so cute to see.

- “Alright, move over, those arms are my spot.”

- You chuckle weakly at your beloved words, and as Excadrill huffs and moves behind you, cuddling against your back.

- Ingo sets the glass of water at your bedside table, before crawling into his side of the bed and pressing you against his chest.

- “Did you know that when trains were first made, it lost a race to a Rapidash? The company who made them didn’t want to rely on horse drawn trains, so on August twenty-eighth 1830, the engine for said train was under going testing. A horse drawn train pulled up during the tests, and challenged Cooper to a race.”

- You snort, making him perk up at your joy.

- “Really? It lost?”

- “Yes! And even though the engine powered train lost, the executives were impressed with it, and converted their fledgling railroad to steam.”

- You two laid there for hours as Ingo rambled off as many facts as he could. From the start of trains to modern day.

- He didn’t realize you had snuggled into his chest and fell asleep.

- Only noticing when you sleepily hum, burying your face into the crook of his neck.

- Ingo looks around, seeing all his Pokémon were asleep too.

- He’s happy he relaxed you enough, you need this.

-

⚪️Emmet⚪️

- When Emmet walks through the door and isn’t hugged, he’s instantly on alert. Work was fine, and he was excited to come back to you.

- But his hubby isn’t here to greet him! That makes him sad. The smiling man is quick to look for you, barely tossing his hat, coat, and shoes off before running off to find you.

- He finds you in bed, in nothing but your boxers laying on your stomach, hiding your face into your pillow.

- “Darrrliiiiing.” He knows you’re awake, but you barely move, only moving your head to the side.

- His pale silver eyes locking with you tired sad ones.

- Emmet is quick to be at your side. He cups your face, cooing softly at you and smothering your face with kisses.

- “My sweet love! Give me a moment.”

- Emmet quickly swaps into pajamas, ignoring the sounds of his pokemon in the background.

- He comes back. You’re laying on your back now, the exhaustion clear on your face.

- Emmet crawls into bed, careful to avoid stepping on Archeops and Eelektross, who are curled on either side of you. Emmet lays on top of you, head on your chest while he places a few kisses to your pecs.

- Galvantula comes out of her nest and lays on Emmet’s back, and Durant sleeps at the foot of the bed.

- “You look to have had a verrry bad day.”

- “Thanks babe.”

- His lips twitch, pouting at your hoarse tired voice.

- You sigh as Emmet nuzzles his cheek against you. You wrap your arms around his upper back, careful to not bother Galvantula.

- “Can you just talk to me?”

- You sound so small.

- “I am Emmet! And I’d love to!”

- You glance down, feeling your husband raise his head.

- “Have you ever heard how tamper proof valves were made?”

- You pause for a moment, “I don’t think you’ve told me that one.”

- His smiles brightly, resting his chin on the center of your chest.

- “The best friend of Anville town! The fireman, who was in charge of the boiler of the steam locomotive, got annoyed by the boilers whistling, so he tied down the valve so it would stop. this was common and a common cause of boiler bursts until a tamper-proof safety valve were made. And even some accounts say he sat on the valve to keep it shut, so the pressure in the boiler became too much and it exploded. The result is now why we have safety!”

- You hum, running your fingers through your lovers silver hair.

- “Do you have any more?”

- Emmet’s eyes shimmer in excitement.

- “I always do!”

- You lay there cuddling, while his Pokémon surround you both, as he tells you how safety protocols came to be.

[interaction-lane]

Drayton laughed, adjusting himself so he wasn't absolutely crushing the poor boy. "Sorry- Sorry. Old habit," he smiled, pressing a kiss to his knuckles and very gently bopping his fist into Crispin's cheek. "My bad. You do make a good pillow, though."

"Yeah. She's a goober, that's for sure." Drayton laughed, wrapping his arm around Crispin's shoulders and giving him a protective squeeze. "I've got you." He smiled, placing his hand on the underside of the Haxorus' chin and leading her head down onto his lap. The dragon rumbled happily, looking up at him with the largest puppy-dog eyes you've ever seen from a giant knife-lizard. He hummed back at her, running his fingers along the back of her tusks, where they were dull. "The only time she's ever cut me was when I was being stupid. She wouldn't hurt me. Or you, for that matter."

Drayton blinked, staring at Crispin with wide eyes. "Oh. Uhm." He took a moment, squeezing his eyes shut to focus his thoughts. "I think you are a very pretty guy, and you are using it for evil." He let his attention stay on the hands cradling his face. "I'm warm-?"

Closed RP Starter with @the-drayster + @bbleague-crispin !!

The lax normal-type specialist casually, yet proudly walks into the league club room with Crispin excitedly following behind him, frying pan slung over his shoulder. "Hey, Drayton!" Tenma says while smiling and waving, as usual. "It's me, Tenma. Oh, and Crispin's here too. Cheesed to see ya." Tenma then proceeds to lean back in a chair, pulling at one of the strands of blue in his hair as Crispin runs up to Drayton, giving him a hug. "I brought David, too. As long as he's allowed, of course," he says before whispering something in Paldean and gesturing to a shiny Porygon that slowly enters the room.

[your-dearest-sunshine]

Ngl I’ve been here before, I’ll deem myself noodle for that sake.

But your Hisui’d child series gets my brain working.

Like imagine trying to readapt to life, but it’s not that easy.

The scars that litter their flesh from all the times they risked their life with wild Pokémon, alpha Pokémon, nobles, and GODS! A child doing a grown adults job.

The angst of dad (Ingo or Emmet) seeing some of those and realizing they almost completely lost their child.

Or the PTSD after everything they have been through.

Haxorus letting out a happy roar? Suddenly their child has thrown themselves over and behind the couch like they were dodging an attack. (While the Hisui’d child’s mind went back to fighting that alpha Garchomp.)

Galvantula making sparks out of excitement? Emmet is suddenly yanked back and away from his Pokémon full force, cause his child’s panicked brain went back to wild Luxray’s attacking them.

Just things like that and the twins having to try and help but also sob because just what the hell were you put through? You loved their Pokémon, who made you feel so afraid?

It doesn’t help when their poor child cries, apologizing for acting like that and that they didn’t mean to freak them out.

Mmm angst, truly amazing.(as is your writing)

my dearest noodle,,,,i’ve been watching this specific response in my inbox for SO LONG but now that emmet’s version of the hisui’d!child series has come out, i now feel better to respond to this.

first of all, i wrote and imagined ingo and emmet’s children to have different personalities before and after hisui. for ingo, his child was more responsible, headstrong, and driven pre-hisui and more anxious, apprehensive, and defensive post-hisui. for emmet, his child was more free-flowing, adventurous, and spunky pre-hisui and more aggressive, cold, and weary post-hisui. due to their diverging personalities, i’d say they’d have different reactions to life after returning home to nimbasa.

ALSO!! i mentioned in this post. that ingo’s child’s team post-hisui was walrein, snorlax, vaporeon, clefable, torterra, and hisuian goodra, and that emmet’s child’s team was drapion, infernape, staraptor, garchomp, machamp, and hisuian zoroark. just wanted to throw that out there before i start spitballing some ptsd things

for ingo’s kid:

Chandelure freaks you out. It reminds you of all the malicious ghosts that would come out at night. You try your best to get along with your father’s partner, but when it starts singing to you, you can’t help but summon Goodra to hold you close and drown out the noise, trying not to cry.

(Ingo cries at this because he remembers the times when you were so young and refused to fall asleep unless Chandelure sang you a lullaby.)

You watch your Pokémon play fight with Ingo’s in the backyard, but your heart is pounding out of your chest and you can’t sit still. It’s been a long time since you’ve seen Pokémon battling that wasn’t a serious situation.

Ingo tries to get your Pokémon to relax, but they’re not used to the situation in modern times where Pokémon are normalized to be out and about and intermingling with people. 

They still absentmindedly interpose themselves between you and anyone approaching.

You don’t like sleeping in a separated bedroom anymore, instead opting to sleep on the couch surrounded by your Pokémon. Ingo checks on you in the middle of the night a lot of times, waking up from nightmares of you disappearing again.

Haxorus is a snuggler, and she wants to cuddle you all the time. It’s hard for you, though, when she approaches you with the sharpened axes on her jaw. They remind you of your fight with Lord Cleavor, the scars on your arms from that encounter still remain.

Your Sawsbuck is the calm in the storm. It gets along with your new Pokémon wonderfully. On the days you feel unsafe, Ingo and Sawsbuck are at your sides, soothing you and keeping you close.

Almost every time Ingo watches you get scared, he sees you stand strong and bare it first, but then after the encounter he sees you dissolve into a fearful mess later. There was so much expected of you, and your mind can’t handle the pressure of being strong anymore.

In the middle of a long, exhaustive night where you can’t fall asleep, you lean against Ingo and tell him the story of what it was like to be banished, to be pushed away and unloved. You tell him the awful things people said about you and how alone you felt.

“You’ve never made me feel like that, dad…I missed you so much.”

A lot of times you collapse into tears, unable to put the pain into real words. Ingo cries with you every time. You will never be alone again.

You tell him what it's like to hold the weight of the world.

for emmet’s kid:

Emmet realizes very quickly that you do not like to be touched. You are covered in phantom aches and pains and it's hard to keep track of the injuries that are real and the ones that are not.

You sometimes catch yourself keeping Emmet’s affections at arms length. He’s your father, but the idea of being open again scares you to your core.

Surprises and loud noises are met with immediate fleeing. You’re incredibly agile, diving through door frames and over furniture when you hear the sound of Archeops squawking. She’s an incredibly kind Pokémon, but her call sends you into a frenzy.

Being in a city the size of Nimbasa makes you nervous, even though you lived here your whole life before Hisui. You claim people are watching you at all times, judging you, and Emmet assures you that they’re not.

(If they were to be, however, Emmet is not one to squander his second chance with you, and nobody will hurt you again.)

The Pokémon your birth father gave you do not get along with the Pokémon you kept from Hisui. They fight all the time, and Emmet holds you back every time from interfering. 

Emmet can see how two sides of you are split into two when this happens. Both sets of Pokémon are very strong, and some of them stood beside you as you grew up, and the others stood by your side in your time of need.

You’re hostile. Things that normally wouldn’t bother you set you on edge. You snap and scream and put up walls in an instant.

Some of your new Pokémon still don’t trust Emmet. Your Hisuian Zoroark is the main perpetrator of this; Zoroark does not fuck with Emmet at all. Any misstep your father makes to you, unknowingly or otherwise, and it’s on sight.

After many months of being back home, you tell Emmet about a blond man you met. You don’t say his name, but you tell your father that he manipulated you, acted like you were friends, and then tried to kill you. You tell him about the betrayal you felt and what the pressure of that battle felt like.

“You never pressured me to be strong, Papa…all you ever wanted for me was to be me. I love you so much.”

You rarely ask for hugs, but when you do, Emmet spares no expense in the short time they last.

You tell him what it’s like to be a hero.

i hope these satisfy your cravings for angst, noodle!! ily btw and don’t you forget that <33

[zstargalaxy]

TORIKO X POKEMON AU

TORIKO x Pokemon Trainer Reader.

I thought of doing my first AU here in Tumblr so here we go!

You knew at the beginning that you wanted an adventure.

You would always remember how you always were an outdoors girl, especielly when it comes to Pokemon.

Big and small, cute or not, you always adore them.

So you had collected alot and i mean ALOT of pokemon during your travels, starting from your home region in Kalos to all the other regions like Kanto, Unova, Sinnoh, Hoenn, Galar and most recently, Alola.

Many people were shock at how many pokemon you had but you didnt pay much mind to them at all.

This was pretty normal to you and you love them all as they love you too.

All of you joined contests and showcases, gym battles and leagues togather with you all winning either 1st, 2nd or 3rd places in each competition.

You didnt have a specific endpoint but you knew that the pathway through the journey is the best bit than the ending.

Though, what you didnt expect was that you will have a brand new, out of this world journey.

Literally

You were just exploring one of the caves in the Alola Region and the next thing you know, you were in a world of "Gourmet Age"

Oh Arcerus...

Years past and now your are 22 years old, 6 years have past since that faithful day and well...things are looking up.

At first, you were suprised at the world you are seeing that consisted of animals that are LITERALLY made of Food.

And they were literally hunted.

I mean, you know some pokemon were hunted down but in a daily bases? And only for eating? Its already traumatizing for the young lady.

They even call them ingredients...

In the town that you are residing on, both before and now, you were still shaken at the discovery you just found.

For the town's people, they found you quite strange that you find their Gourmet hunting strange considering that it is normal during this age.

And dont get me started with her Pokemon.

Everyone was immensely shock at the strange new creatures that hold great power, they were even shock that someone as you as you in your teens can actually tame this many and powerful ingre-BEASTS!

You have to correct them or else the pokemon themselves will.

Overtime, you gotten used to your new home.

Though you missed your family and friends back at home, you always learn to adapt and resource to know what to do.

Your pokemon were at first also have the same reaction as you, especielly your poor Appletun and Alcreamie but they too adapt to their new area and have gotten the town loving them back.

(Though you have to stop a few of them in trying to take a bite out of them, resulting in Haxorus using Dragon breath to warn them)

Each of your pokemon does various jobs, hobbies and habits around the small quiet town to either have fun or earn money for you to continue living.

For you, you had decided to work at a small cafe in the town as a waitress but you also became a co-chef too after you had introduce some of your own world's cusine from each region like the over 100 types of curry from Galar, Malasadas from Alola and Poffins from Sinnoh.

For your pokemon, like i had said, they do various activities around the town

Like Drampa being like a school bus for the children whenever they go to and from school, with the children loving the ride and fun they had with the dragon pokemon.

And Florges and Shaymin helping in the harvest of fruits, flowers and other foliage that they could help with the local farmers.

And so much more.

Oh yeah!

Did i mention that the town you have been residing on for 6 years is also the home town of Komatsu?

The adevnture awaits then for you ;)

And for those you have send me the requests, one of them is almost done so watch out!

Also, i will be experimenting with other media with Pokémon so i will making quite a few crossover.

If ya all want, go ask ahead or even request of what you want to see in the Toriko x Pokemon, TWST x Pokemon and even the TWST x Palace pets.

Stay tune my Galaxies! ;3

[randomwriteronline]

((Underneath Deep Blue Sea))

When he woke up, there was clear yellow light coming in from the blinds in long rows of small, still rectangles, falling onto a very dusty desk and the back of a somewhat dusty chair.

He was the only man in the room.

His first instinct was to turn face up and keep on sleeping, but it was probably outstandingly late and he had definitely caused an infinite delay he was never going to hear the end of it for already.

Groaning softly, Ingo stretched his arms outwards and tried straightening his legs as much as he could, straining his joints from their curled up pose so that they would crack and soften up. His hands gently hit a pointed snout and a cold (almost metallic) something resting around his head; he mumbled a sort of apology, though the sleep clinging to him kept him from fully realizing what exactly he had bumped into.

A vicious sickle grazed his neck.

Then something with scales forced his head upwards and attempted to burrow in his throat, snuggling against it as his temples were pulled into the lukewarm embrace of what seemed like a pair of iron handles.

"Ah - good morning," he greeted with a vague smile as one his hand scratched at Haxorus's throat, making the Dragon gurgle in delight, and the other instead petted the glass-smooth bulb that was Chandelure's head: “Good morning, hello... Hello, hello - yes, I am awake! Hello!”

His palms clasped around the whining reptile’s snout and shook it gently left and right, fiersome bladed mandible swaying with the armored head as it clicked and hissed affectionately. He placed a kiss on top of it: haunting wind chimes lamented a lack of love being reserved to them and so he leaned back a little so that those vacuous yellow eyes could look into his own as they hovered around him, and bumped his forehead against the smooth ethereal skin-that-was-not-skin-nor-glass. Chandelure wrapped him in a tight hug to pull him out of the draconic grip, nearly tearing his head off.

He patted her side urgently, though gently: “Ow ow ow ow ow,” he vocalized, “Excessive pressure in the steamer -- ow, ow, ow...”

The poor thing let go in a hurry, truly apologetic - but now at least Haxorus laid a little further down on Ingo’s chest, and their trainer could at last give his ace a proper, infinitely tender hug as he basked in the vague ghostly warmth.

A heavy weight slammed onto his stomach hard enough to make him sit upright, stunned for a moment by a varied concert of chirps and whirrs and little shouting noises, and before he knew it a metal cap bossily shoved both Dragon and Ghost aside to reveal a pair of pale pink nostrils sniffing insistently until they bumped right into his own long and straight nose, wetting it a little with the humidity upon them.

Huge claws clacked and scampered closer, and once the shock was over he ran scarred fingers across the little white face under its metal helmet and kissed the pink nose.

“Hello, hello,” he said again, scratching just harshly enough under her shoulder to make Excadrill trill as she licked his cheek and sideburns to make him presentable, out of herself with joy, “Please don’t shove other passengers like that -- yes, hello! Hello! Good morning!”

Large pinchers pulled then at his pants, inviting him to look to his side - and after a single glance he immediately hid his face back in the dusty fur of Excadrill’s neck as she held him back, horrendously embarassed.

Loud chitters complained about his shyness as he pawed at the covers, patting a soft carapace by accident a couple times: “I apologize, I apologize -- oh dear,” and with a bunch of fabric he tried to cover up the orange Bug, “I will be there in just a moment - but please, make yourself a little decent first!”

There was a loud rustling, then a cricketing sound: only then could Ingo not fear to look upon the naked form, now very much wrapped up to the point where it could scuttle no more.

Awkwardness handled, the man wasted no time picking the mollusc that raised his claws up to his face as if to chop off his hair into his arms and squeezing Crustle gently, pressing his mouth to the frowning little head to pepper it with kisses that made the poor thing squirm in outraged embarassment as if he hadn’t been so eager and impatient to get his own dose of dearly missed affections just a second before.

A joyful cacophony - like the gurgle of a whirlpool full to burst with something large and sickeningly gross, rolling in the current and tearing into chunks of lard and jello - distracted him from administering his loving torture as it hurried closer and closer, reaching out with tubular fingers that caught Ingo’s face just in time to shove it against a smooth, plastic something covering a pile of what seemed like it very well might have been extraordinarily nicely scented garbage.

Ah, he just thought fondly as the tell-tale tingling feeling of unspeakable poisons seeping into his system to be easily digested by his liver (a feeling that he already knew in Hisui he was familiar with) began coursing through his veins.

He hugged Garbodor back really tight as she sputtered and glorged like a finally unclogged sink in his ear, rubbing her clean teeth against his hair.

“Good mooorning,” he muffled against whatever composed her shoulder, “Good morning, good morning! Hello my dear, hello -- yes, yes, you too,” he snorted a little - at all the beasties trying to wriggle into his hold, to get him all for each one of themselves insted of sharing, “You too, I haven’t - I know you’re here, yes - I have only two hands!”

And the winner of that struggle ended up being a brand new challenger - descending with a loud metallic noise that made everybody else shudder with discomfort and plopping itself right on its trainer’s lap.

Klingklang was not particularly easy to pamper or cuddle with on account of being a literal hunk of metal with several sharp or at least somewhat jagged angles; but as they cried out triumphantly and demanded a treatment equal to that the rest of his team had received, something similar a pebble thrown into Ingo’s mind dissipated a small patch of fog clouding a little memory.

A hollow ‘bonk!’ resounded through the room as his head fell on the blue core; Klingklang began turning faster and faster and faster, shouting little shrieks at everybody else.

Look!, they seemed to say to their equally ecstatic friends all huddled around their trainer, Look! The bonk! He knows! He remembers! The bonk!, with incomprehensible delight, and Ingo struggled to rub his forehead on the only not moving part of the clanging beast, huffing and puffing quiet laughs until everybody calmed down.

Then it was the turn of something much smaller, much fuzzier.

Something which crawled with little legs grappling at him in a frenzy, overjoyed, and that jumped on top of his head with wild leaps despite its height.

Something that squeaked happily and nibbled on his arms as a means of properly welcoming him back - both home, and to the waking realm.

Which was very sweet, but also happened to spectacularly mess up his nerves.

His hands trembling and spasming lightly from the mild electric discharges went to gently pry the Joltiks off of where they were eagerly sinking their little fuzzy fangs: “Oh no no no,” he murmured with infinite fondness and exhasperation while they cricketed and chirped and crackled their little electric greetings at him, “Hello - hello, hello little ones, hello - ouch! - no no no, down please, down -- ow, ow, that hurts, ow, ow- ow ow- ow ow-ouch, ow-ouch, ow-ouch--”

Excadrill must have realized the situation with a slight lag, and at last launched a short shrill shriek admonishing the little pests. Her long claws dug quick and careful into the minuscule space between skin and little yellow bellies, popping the critters off of her trainer like barnacles off the side of a ship.

Ingo sighed: “Very appreciated,” and got the top of Haxorus’ armored neck slammed into his jaw as the Dragon rubbed against him looking for scritches.

Love was tough with a team so full of safety hazards.

Not that Gliscor had been a much safer alternative, now that he thought about it. Or Tangrowth, or Machamp, or Magnezone, or Nosepass -- actually Alakazam might have been the only one out of the six of them able to be candidated for least likely to maim him or break his bones by accident. Though she definitely would have had no trouble condensing him into a pebble with a single look...

What an ironic kind of fate. He was so full of love and most of his darlings were deadly creatures.

And over half of them where dead and gone.

Clack! Something opened outside the room.

“Hello, girlies!” somebody called, muffled by the walls. “I got groceries!”

Ingo froze in place, a prehistorical terror taking hold of him and blotting out the thoughts he had uncautiously allowed to spiral.

Oh! Oh fuck. Oh fuck no. Not people. Not right now. He quickly looked at himself: shirt, crumpled; pants, crumpled; socks, nowhere to be seen (where were they, by the way, because he did not remember taking them off - ah, alright, there they are, full of sleeping Joltiks peeking through the holes he had so patiently mended over and over); coat, do not even mention that poor mauled thing; Excadrill fur and Archeops feathers, absolutely everywhere; hair, he could not see it but he would bet his ass it was horrid. He was in no way presentable and he had no intention of making a fool out of himself in his own home.

(Home home home home home home home home home home he was home he was home this was home home home home home home home home home he was really home it was home this was home they were home he was home he was home he was home he was home and the giddiness made him almost forget the threat inside the loved walls, but not quite.)

He attempted to dive back under the covers, to hide his undignified appearance from the sudden intruder, accidentally ramming one of Crustle’s claws directly against his nose as he had forgotten he was wrapped in the blanket.

“Girlies? Heyo?”

Chandelure whispered a soft chiming sound in his ear, clearly stoked to hear the alien voice, and wrapped her handle-like tendrils under his armpits to lift him up. She did not count on the possibility of him sinking his nails into the mattress and holding onto it for dear life and she struggled a few more times before considering, annoyed, using Psychic to get him off of that thing.

No, she concluded eventually while Klingklang attempted to somehow hook its trainer’s leg to its metal hoop and drag him out: when Ingo panicked he latched onto things with an invincible grip.

The Ghost sighed loudly while Haxorus whined.

Then Excadrill - after an attempt at leveraging him off - looked right at her and gave an inquisitive chirp, a suggestion.

Pokémon speak can be somewhat obscure to translate in certain cases, but the shrill whistle that came out of Chandelure could have been roughly understood to be something akin to a deadpan ‘I will kiss you on the lips’.

Ingo did not pay attention to it, nor did he think much of the slight drumming on his back caused by something small falling onto him; then there was a quick ZAP! composed of several, more minute ‘zap!’s, and he found himself forcibly losing his hold onto the mattress and being hurled into the strong wiry arms of ever gentle Garbodor, any Joltik still clinging onto him quickly removed not without some difficulty by Klingklang, Excadrill and the now freed (and once again indecent) Crustle.

“Baby boys? You there?”

Haxorus wagged his enormous tail softly at the pet name, swiping up a few clouds of dust from the floor and softly hitting the side of Crustle’s house - which made the Bug croak angrily as he hurried off of the bed back into the square block of rock to transport it as far away from the Dragon as possible.

Ignoring him completely, the large lizard gently grabbed his trainer’s arm in his mouth and pulled to rip him off of the blankets, whole body wiggling enthusiastically in his excitement.

Ingo tried punting his feet in the pavement, tried finding cracks and softened terrain in which to dig his heels in, arched his back to find some grip and oppose the force dragging him out of the safety of his den to meet some unknown challenger; alas the floor was too smooth for him to get some leverage and his soles, though bare, could do little against Garbodor excitedly nudging him forward with the gargantuan mass of her sluggish body.

“Anybody home?”

No amount of frightened whispers and insisting that he didn’t know who that was could deter the six creatures from gently forcing him into the jaws of the beast.

They stopped only as he finally managed to grab onto a doorframe to steady himself, but at that point it was already too late.

“Where on earth have you -- hello...?”

Showing the back of her red and blue jacket at him, the woman was peering into an empty doorway.

He froze.

He didn’t know her.

Her hair was black and her skin seemed fair. Her fingers were very well kept. Her nails appeared to shine a little. Her legs seemed long and so did her arms. Her clothes were made well, or at least they looked like they were.

She leaned a little further into the unknown, making the bags held tight in one hand sway and rustle.

“Excuse me,” he started as quietly as possible.

The woman jumped and turned with a sharp gasp as if she had not expected to be answered with words, light blue eyes spooked out of their sockets and wider than a full moon over Mount Coronet under dark bangs. She tensed for a moment at the sight of him, a haggard man with six beautiful beasts standing right behind him like a full-body halo, and remained just as tense after, but something in the way she held her stance was different: the shock of fear had subsided, and a different kind of undecipherable feeling had taken over.

He shrunk back into his own shoulders and raised a hand as a peace offering: “I apologize for startling you,” his booming voice came sheepishly to her ears, “It was not my intention.”

She remained perfectly silent, blocked in her body.

Her lips were slightly parted - not to speak; it was only a small circle, smeared still with some kind of lilac shadow. His eyes fell on the bags still in her hands.

Chandelure sang beautifully, bobbing her entire body in mid air in the way she would do when welcoming a visitor she liked: the woman waved at her slightly, barely managing a peep out of her mouth.

“Are you Elesa?” Ingo asked very gently. She lit up for a moment; then, as he continued, he watched the glow of her face dim slightly: “Emmet mentioned you would have arrived by... Noon, is that right? I am dreadfully sorry, I’m afraid I have just woken up.”

She nodded, a little stunted in the motion, and waved her hand again: “It’s fine,” she reassured him. He voice seemed to wobble a little bit; she pursed her lips to humidify them. “And I - yes, it’s - I’m Elesa, yes. That’s... Me. That’s me.”

He watched Elesa swallow and gulp as she looked him over a little better, now that she was ever so slightly shaken out of her shock. Her shoulders dropped a little bit, some tension finally lost as she took him in with a strange gaze that still was far from a scrutinizing glare.

Crustle scuttled over to her with a quick tip-tip-tip-tip-tip of his little legs and rubbed the top of his house against a plastic casing full of greens, as if to take it from her and relieve her of its weight; she lifted it with a quick mumbled thanks, assuring him under her breath that she could handle them perfectly fine on her own, and stumbled a bit on her own feet before she could face Ingo again.

A breath escaped her: “I’m so happy to see you.”

He did not know her.

“I’m glad,” he replied honestly.

She nodded.

He wanted to know her.

If she really was so happy to see him, he wanted to know her.

Garbodor barged into the strange ice film that was keeping the entire room almost perfectly still with a joyful gurgle and a gentle nudge against Ingo’s back to move past him and stand at a slight distance from Elesa, noodly arms outstretched in the only hug that would not have poisoned the poor woman on the spot. Haxorus wiggled through as well now that the awkwardness had melted away at least a little bit, bumping his big scaly head against her hand so that she would rub it energically.

Klingklang preferred forcing its trainer completely out of the doorway and a little closer to his visitor - a sentiment echoed by Excadrill as she took his squishy palm between careful claws and dragged him towards Elesa, reaching out with various chirps and calls to hold her free hand as well.

She chattered some more in her incomprehensible tongue, seemingly personally introducing one human to the other and vice versa.

It was... Hard, to look at the woman, Ingo found as he fixed his stare on the pavement as if it had turned into something much more outstandingly interesting than it really was. More for a strange sort of bashfulness, a kind of awkward uncertainty at what to actually do in this situation that felt just... Awfully surreal.

Elesa herself could not stop gazing around the house, avoiding his frame (helped in part by the very insistent greetings of the man’s various beasties), biting her tongue.

She inhaled quickly, swallowed her tears and choked up as she could not stop the words struggling as they escaped her mouth: “Can I... Would it be okay if I - if I hugged you?”

That had his shoulders jumping upwards as a coat of red spread on his cheeks.

She retraced her steps immediately, freeing her hand from Excadrill’s hold to raise it in the air to show she meant no harm nor offense: “You can say no if you don’t want me to, it’s perfectly fine, I mean--”

“No, no, I...” he reassured her; a knot of feelings drummed a moment in his chest before he decided: “I think I... Would not mind that.”

A quiet, wary second followed.

“Are you sure?” she whispered again.

“I am,” he nodded, just as softy.

Elesa sucked in a breath: the former warden watched her fumble with her bags a moment, looking around for a place to put them away that wasn’t the ground. Crustle nudged her foot and wiggled a bit, inviting her to leave them on his carapace; she weighted her options for a moment or two, finally yielded: the groceries sat perfectly balanced on the flat surface.

She seemed almost scared as she approached him. Ingo, on his part, only noted distractedly amongst his antsy nervousness that she was really, really tall.

Her hands reached out to him, and he imagined she would have held his arms.

But he had a jolt when they sat softly on his shoulders instead, a little awkwardly, almost clumsy; he saw her face clearly, so close, and how round it was in shape, and then she slid her temple against his head, his hair, his cheek, and remained perfectly still; and he could not help but raise his arms and embrace her back very carefully, a striking deja-vù making him feel dizzy.

Sneasler had hugged him like that, when he had left her behind mere days ago.

Mere decades ago.

Mere centuries ago.

She had held him like that -- but that wasn’t the memory which had just struck him, not the full one. The memory was the shape and weight of the hug, the same ones the Noble had bestowed upon him, offering his mind a first flash through the fog, the same ones Elesa was bestowing upon him, in a finally closed electric circuit that had been left dangling open and immoble for so long.

And she was tall, and she had a round face, and her braids were long and silky and shiny and flowing like long feathers in the mountain winds, and her skin was soft, and her body was slender and strong.

And her hands rested on his shoulders and her soft hair brushed his cheek when she hugged him.

Vertigo made his knees weak, made them buckle. He leaned into her and she let him, slender arms sliding on his back following unknowingly the path of long lines left by an old scratched wound that had bubbled with poison on the skin the Lady of the Mountain had ripped by accident, and the sickeningly bittersweet smell of Nanab berry confused and muddled his recollections as he marked it as unusual and wrong.

(It should be Persim, he thought distractedly. The shampoo she always gets is Persim scented. They must have needed her hair particularly glossy for a photoshoot, and used something with Nanab that covered it.)

(He was too busy being overwhelmed by everything to question who would have done that, why, what a photoshoot was, how he knew any of that.)

Sneasler had reminded him of someone.

Sneasler, whom he was so very fond of, had reminded him of someone.

Was this her?

Was this the person he could not place when comparing the Noble to the vaguest remembrances of somebody he had also held very dear to his heart?

“Holy shit,” Elesa sobbed with a smile in her voice, “You’re really here.”

Suddenly she sounded so close to him.

In a way that went beyond her actual physical proximity.

Ingo held her a bit tighter as her own grip grew stronger.

“I - everybody was so scared... And now you’re...! Oh, Ingo...”

He felt through a haze of still garbled memories her mouth pressing near the drum of his ear, with a kind of love given by worried older sisters that made him feel like he had never eaten in his life only to be fed now something so good that he could not believe it to be real.

Her voice came to him crystalline, yet as if wading through a vast sea: “I’m so glad to see you...”

His hands balled into fists and reached a little upwards, clenching the rectangle of her jacket’s fabric that sat between her shoulder blades.

He wanted to know her again.

He wanted so bad to know her again.

But he did not say that, with his mouth on her clothed shoulder.

“I apologize for the disastrous delay,” he chose instead as his first words before her kindness, mortified. “I am... I am truly, honestly sorry for the discomfort I’ve caused - I, I promise I shall do everything I can not to derail from schedule now that I’m back on track, I-”

“No sorries,” she admonished him. Her hands left his back, his shoulders, to cup his face between extraordinarily soft palms: she met his gaze with eyes gleaming with humidity and brushed his sideburns with her thumbs, infinitely happy despite her melancholy: “You’re here now, and you’re safe and sound, and that’s what matters.”

She smiled so wonderfully at him.

The man looked into her irises as if they had a gravitational pull on his pupils.

“You are exceptionally pretty.” Ingo breathed.

Elesa gave an airy laugh.

“Emmet did warn me in advance,” he continued in the same awe-struck tone, causing her to turn her head to avoid his gaze as she still chuckled, trying to keep her modesty, “But I fear I severely underestimated his words.”

“Flatterer,” she only replied. Black streaks were inching down her cheek.

Her old friend startled as he saw them: “Ah - your eyes are leaking!” he panickedly informed her, his thumb already swiping under her blue eyes to try and rub the dark pigment out of her skin as gently as possible.

“That’s called crying, you bidoofus,” she cooed.

“Forgive me, but I don’t believe your tears are normally black in color!”

“Ah- oh, yeah, yeah... Don’t worry, it’s just - I should have a tissue...” she fished a paper handkerchief out of her pocket, fumbling with it; it was caught by paler fingers and she laughed as the man insisted on carefully wiping the running stains away himself: “It’s just make up, don’t worry!”

Her attempt at a disgruntled pout wobbled and cracked into a toothy smile as Ingo rubbed a little harder against the falling eyeliner.

Once she was no longer crying and he was properly satisfied with his handywork he pulled away hastily, cheeks pink, as if he had been caught intruding somewhere he shouldn’t have been. His wrists were caught in smooth fingers, in the sight of a grin that grew a little smaller when he lowered his bright embarassed eyes.

You don’t know who I am, right?

Elesa leaned her head the slightest bit to the side: “You haven’t really... Had breakfast, right?”

Ingo remained stunned for a moment or so.

“Ah,” he noted: “I haven’t.”

Various whines, murmurs and grumbles from pits of wider and smaller stomachs coming from all around the two of them described (lamented) a similar situation of unplanned fasting.

The gym leader sniffed, passing the back of her hand under her nose to somewhat wipe it clean: “Well, I haven’t had lunch,” she chuckled a bit, her voice coming out a bit nasally, “But I did get some pretty good Basculin at half price. If- if I’m not, intruding or anything.”

“Oh, no! Not at all!” Ingo was quick to reassure her. His hands itched to... To... To reach out, to be welcomed in a sense.

So he clapped them together, in a way that she clearly knew.

“I would love to know you.” he settled on his response. Correcting: “Again.”

Elesa smiled in a way that made her face look rounder and her eyes too small, and he thought that was the second most wonderful smile he had ever seen.

-

One ring.

Two rings.

Three rings.

The screen zapped back to life, colors arranging into a known composition; Elesa's face smiled at him.

“You look like shit,” she greeted him.

Emmet blearily widened his grin, eyes half lidded in an accepting yet insulted grimace: “Thanks.”

“Seriously, did something happen?” she pressed lightly, "You look like a horde of Bouffalant ran you over."

“Nope,” he replied. He rubbed a hand over his face and hummed a little bit: “Took a sleeping pill,” he finally admitted, “Am paying the consequences.”

“You couldn’t sleep?”

The subway boss swayed his head left and right, clearly not inclined to answer despite wanting to talk.

“Is... Is Ingo there?” he asked quietly.

His friend's eyes crinkled into half moons as her grin widened; angling and turning her wrist, she pointed the Xtransceiver’s screen to her side, to show him the half curled up body snoring gently beside her with a noise like a train whistle and arms full of Crustle.

(Emmet hoped his sigh of relief was quiet enough not to be heard.)

“Yes he is,” she laughed softly: “All tuckered out from cleaning the house.”

He furrowed his brow at the information: “I would have done that.” he replied with an irate mumble of sorts. His tone was incomprehensibly piqued, like a little kid mad that his favorite toy was taken without permission yet being forbidden from doing anything about it.

The gym leader on her part just sighed in relief: “I’m glad we beat you to it then,” was her comment.

Emmet’s glare-and-pout combo made her roll her eyes: “Oh come on, you have enough on your plate as is. Accept a little help.”

“I’ve done nothing but accept a little help these past years,” he complained.

“Well, I think you should accept a little more.”

He blew her a half-hearted razz berry; she retaliated by showing him her tongue.

“Why are you calling so late, by the way?" she changed topic of conversation once they got tired of acting like a pair of five-year-olds annoying each other. "Did you eat?”

Instantly she got a short series of quick nods: “Yup yup! I did eat. Mushroom and chicken sandwich. There were five in the fridge. Now there’s three. You can check. You don’t have to, because it’s the truth. But you can check.”

She had indeed seen those three sandwiches in the fridge, and traces of mayo next to them betraying that another pair had been previously present as well and had now not so misteriously disappeared. That didn’t of course mean that Emmet had actually eaten them, of course, and only seeing him do so live would have convinced her that he had indeed nourished himself - but she hummed half-heartedly, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Emmet rubbed his eye with a finger: “I’m stuck above ground,” he explained, and gave a yawn he didn’t quite manage to hide behind his hand: “We had a delay. Big Whimsicott swarm wandered on the tracks, verrry big. Many got their fur caught in. They’re getting untangled. One by one. Verrry slowly. It’s so tedious. Sooo verrry tedious.”

Elesa’s elegant brow furrowed: “You’re not driving, right?”

“Nope!” he shook his head, “That would be verrry dangerous. Too tired. Too sluggish. This is the Double Line! I am waiting for challengers.”

Ah, that explained it.

“So the agents can’t drag you back home to nap?” she teased him. He replied with a toneless ah-ha. “At what time did you even take that pill if you’re so tired?”

Emmet stumbled a moment, as if weighting his options. She caught how he chewed the corner of his lower lip (she had seen him do that so much by now there was no chance in hell he could have hidden the nervous tick from her even if he had tried), but said nothing of it yet.

“I thought it was medicine,” he answered finally, skirting around the question.

“For what?”

“... Hallucinations.”

It took her a moment to register that properly.

“Emmet-”

“I only took one! Safety in moderation!”

“-Why?”

She wasn’t angry.

Not just angry, at the very least, or not mainly angry.

First and foremost, she was worried.

And maybe that was the thing that made Emmet feel so small in front of her - that apprehension.

“It’s...” his upper jaw teethed all over his lower lip, left to right and right to left; faintly, she could hear him cracking the knuckles of the hand laying by his side as he averted her eyes. Elesa strained to hear him when he finally started explaining himself - not without some difficulty if the pauses between sentences were any indication: "He’s there. With you. But it doesn’t... Feel, like it... Like it's - here. True. It’s too good to be true, no? He's home. Back home. Safe and home. Too good. It can't... Can't be real, right? So I got. Scared. That I was imagining it. And it wasn’t real.”

“But it is real.” and to punctuate that Elesa's hand went to rest on and gently squeeze the bony knee all curled up by her side, angling her wrist again so that the younger twin could see it too. “He’s here. Safe and sound and real.”

Emmet nodded, eyes down, voice quiet: “I know. I know. And I’m so glad.”

A garbled intercom announcement came through in the short silence that followed, warning that the Whimsicott were still being untangled from the tracks, and that Agent Josh apologized for the discomfort and added delay.

The subway boss took off his hat and flapped it a little at his face as if it were a fan, as if the small gusts of air could substitute the several dozens of buckets of pure ice cold water he felt would have been needed to properly wake him up from his torpor.

“Well! That was a bummer,” he noted a little more cheerfully, grinning to the best of his sleep-struck abilities: “Sorry I dropped the mood. What have you two been up to? Laundry?”

Elesa too regained a small smile and huffed: “Hey - we can’t just do all your chores for you, you know...”

“But I’m the breadwinner.”

She gave a playful outraged gasp and scoffed: “Excuse you! I had a very tiring photoshoot this morning before shopping for your groceries and coming over to care for your poor brother!”

“Uuuh,” and Emmet fanned himself a little harder, giving a laugh or two: “And he was awake to see you?”

“I think I woke him up, actually,” she replied: “Either me, or his team. He scared the crap out of me at first, but you know how he is, gentlemanly and all, so he apologized and... When did you tell him I would come over?"

"Around noon."

"No, I mean at what time did you tell him. I thought you both went to bed early?"

"Ah," Emmet clicked his tongue - a quirk he had picked up from Mawile. It was awfully easy to replicate and just keep doing it, similarly to his own verbal tick. "I woke up at, uh... Two. And woke him up too by accident. So we talked a bit."

“At two in the morning?”

“Couldn’t sleep well. You know. Him being real or not. The whole thing.”

She only gave a soft sigh: "What did you talk about?"

"Not much," he replied quickly. "Tried to see what he could remember. Pokémon. People. Not much in the end. Did he recognize you?"

Elesa shook her head, though there was a certain happiness in her eyes despite that: "No, not at all. But - well, but he told me he met someone who reminded him of me.”

“Still! That’s something.”

“No - Emmet, it was someone else who reminded him of me.”

The Klings in her friend’s brain did a couple more rotations before he properly registered what that meant.

At which point his eyes widened and his voice rose in volume with a simple, dumbfounded: "Really?"

"Yeah!” she replied just as giddy as when she had first heard that herself. “He said there was this really tall lady, a good friend of his, and the way she was kind of seemed really familiar... He said she was very strong and - well, of course she was lovely and confident and cool and oozed charm and charisma like it was nobody’s business.”

A stunted laugh reached her: “Huh-huh,” Emmet amused her.

“Really. Said she was the baddest bitch of the mountain.”

Now there was a full blown cackle.

“Side ponytail. Fresh manny.”

A wheeze: “Ingo doesn’t know those wo-o-o-ords,” the subway boss called her bluff, voice jumping over his laughter.

“Yes he does! Those are the exact words he used to describe her!”

Her Xtransceiver’s visuals went sideways as her friend bent down and propped himself up on his own knees, shaking a bit as he wheezed a couple more times.

“He told me over lunch,” the gym leader continued once he had regained his composure, “Because he woke up at noon, so, you know, didn’t eat breakfast of course, and it was lunchtime anyways so we made some together."

"Hmmm. Yum,” Emmet still giggled a moment more: “What did you have?"

"Really just some pan fried Basculin. The one with, uh, bread? Crumbs? On top of it? We saved you some, don't worry - Ingo drowned his in lemon juice, like he always does...”

(The way his tired face softened at that little revelation must have mirrored her own expression.)

“Then I got out the vacuum cleaner to tidy up a little and he got spooked to hell and back by it,” she continued, and yet again was treated to another wheeze from behind the screen, “But don’t you worry, we all protected him well, sat him on the couch and all - and I got to see Haxorus being terrified too, like you told me he gets sometimes with the vacuum, so he was sitting on Ingo’s lap smothering him and rattling and growling at me, you know? Wanted to be all tough, keeping his eyes on the thing making all that noise so it wouldn’t try anything funny... Also! You forgot to take out the trash and Garbodor decided to eat it for lunch.”

“Argh. Ingo got mad?”

Elesa giggled: “A little bit. He said she should probably eat something more... Healthy and... Digestible, more often.”

Emmet nodded: “I’ll get her cake.”

“That’s not much better!”

“It’s organic!”

She groaned loudly. Emmet cackled some more at her expense and got a glare shot right at him, defending himself with the brim of his cap.

“Anyways... After I put away the terrible vacuum we went and dusted his room and then yours - he found his button-ups and stuff, looked at all the old textbooks from uni you two kept instead of selling them like any sane person would have... He doesn’t remember any of the engineering stuff, or the train driving. He got very surprised that he got his degree at all.”

He hummed. Taking courses again would have been a must then.

If Ingo still wanted to be a Subway Boss.

Because there was always the possibility that he might have gone for something else, now that he was a blank slate all over again. Maybe he didn’t even like trains anymore.

Maybe he didn’t even like battles anymore.

A sad possibility.

But still a plausible one.

The snap of Elesa’s fingers caught his attention.

“At one point he found this picture book on one of your shelves--” she licked her lips and squinted her eyes, mouth all twisted as she struggled to remember: “Rata- Ratatatata-”

Emmet lit up: “Ratatatam?” he offered.

His friend gave him an affirmative finger gun: “That one!”

“A children’s book,” he nodded, “With a white locomotive escaping its home...”

 “Exactly, yes! That one right there! He sat with it on the floor in complete silence and started turning the pages slowly, taking his time reading, looking at all the pictures, taking in every single detail...”

Emmet’s head thunked gently against the car wall, eyes closed and smile as wide as a half moon, letting out a little ‘aaah’ that tasted like bittersweet nostalgia: “We have it since forever... It was our favorite,” he recalled. “Before we could read we would sit and look at the pictures. Ingo would tell me the story but he just made it up every time. It was always different. Every single time. It was verrry obvious. And sometimes it wasn’t even a good story.”

“But did you like them?”

“Everytime.” he grinned. “Every one of them.”

The crackling reverberation of Agent Josh’s voice captured their attention as he announced something barely intelligible which ended with a very polite and slightly more comprehensible ‘thank you’. The train gave a jerk forward, inertia seemingly pulling Emmet towards the back end of the car as his coat slid a little against the wall, and with a rumble growing louder the tracks began speeding away beneath the steel beast.

“We are moving again,” Emmet announced flatly as he held onto a handrail to keep himself from undignifiedly collapsing on the pavement.

He was met with a huffing “At last!” as if his friend had been an impatient commuter fighting against boredom and tight schedules as she impatiently waited for the Whimsicott swarm to be painstakingly removed from the train’s predetermined path.

He squeezed his groggy eyes and scratched at the back of his neck: “Do you have any plans? For later? I’ll be here all day.”

She huffed at the last part, but didn’t object to it. Instead, she leaned cheek on her knuckles and turned rather pensive, one finger trying to curl a stray strand of hair around itself and grimacing at the feeling of hairspray under her digit.

“I think right now I’ll follow his example and have a snooze for a half an hour,” she decided.

“Hmmm. Bad idea.”

“Hm?”

“Thirty minutes is the worst nap,” he warned her. “Leaves you sleepy and tired. Either less or more than that is much better.”

Elesa smiled slyly at him, cocking an eyebrow: “Is that so, Mister Nap Expert?” she cooed. “Where’d ya learn that? Did Isadore tell you after you fell asleep on your own two feet like a Blitzle?”

Emmet just stuck his tongue out at her again.

“After that... I guess I could take Ingo out for a walk on the town? See if it can jog a couple memories?”

“Was that a pun.”

A beat of quiet.

Then the gym leader smiled devilishly: “Yes,” she lied.

Emmet stuck his tongue out harder with a disgusted expression. to which she replied by snorting out a laugh that made Crustle grumble from his nest in his trainer’s arm.

“Ignoring your failed comedic career-” that got him an outraged gasp “-Where did you wanna go with him? Nimbasa isn’t small. It is cramped though. Big crowds might be a lot.”

The model twisted her mouth as she nodded and tried to figure something out.

“I could take him to the fair grounds?” she proposed. “It’s pretty airy and the lights aren’t that strong now that it’s late season anyways, plus he’ll be all covered up so the media doesn’t jump on him...” then her face lit up: “I could take him on the Rondez-view! The ferris wheel! You can see all of Nimbasa from up there, maybe even a little further. And then I can take him to my old gym and show him the rollercoaster!”

“Hm! Sounds fun!“ her friend approved; a cheeky little idea made him smirk maliciously: “Don’t make a move on him on the wheel.”

Elesa looked at him absolutely flabbergasted.

“Ew!” she cried out softly, her tongue stuck out in disgust and head bobbing as if she were gagging: “I’m not gonna try and date my own brother!”

“Adopted.”

“Still a brother! And I have a girlfriend!”

“Maybe she’s your beard.”

Elesa groaned as loud as she could without waking Ingo up, Emmet reveling in the atrocious pain he was inflicting her.

He spared a glance out the glass, a dark maw approaching quicker and quicker: “Tunnel in 800 meters,” he warned her concisely to signal that the connection would have been cut off soon enough.

Regaining composure at record speed, the gym leader wasted no time: “Take-out tonight, Kanto? Johto?”

“Johto’s good.”

“Usual order?”

“Yes please. Have a good nap and outing!”

“Have a good run! And nap.”

“Better no nap.”

“Yes nap. Rest a bit. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

He put a hand to his mouth to heighten the volume: “Love you, Ingo,” he managed to call out just quickly enough before the line fell silent in the entrails within which tirelessly snaked the subway trains, deeper and deeper into the earth, making a hellish rockus as they ran along the long silver trails of their forefathers and grandchildren.

Wrapped around himself on the couch, Ingo snuggled a little closer to the cushions and hummed loudly, as if sleeptalking.

-

His legs were lead when he managed to drag them through the door.

“I am Emmet,” he announced tiredly, fumbling a couple times before he finally managed to hang his coat with his eyes closed. “I am home.”

Huh, he noted distractedly as he slowly rubbed at an eyelid (Arceus was he groggy - maybe dinner could have been rescheduled to happen tomorrow evening? Right now he really just wanted to sleep), he did not remember Excadrill having such heavy and fast-approaching footsteps.

He made a sound halfway between a squeezed rubber Ducklett and a Vullaby whose neck was getting wrangled when the bolt squashed his ribcage tight in its arms and accidentally slammed him against the door with all its might.

Something very loud made his ears ring.

It sounded vaguely like ‘you’re back!’.

Finally, his attacker pulled back, hands still firmly grasping his shoulders; once he finally focused he was face to face with his own...

Face.

“I was getting worried!” Ingo shouted directly at him, so loud and so close it probably rattled Emmet’s brain inside his skull very similarly to how the weird thing inside of an energically shaken magic 8 ball shoots all over its cramped living space: “Elesa did say you would have returned late but didn’t specify how far into the evening that would have been! I feared something might have happened to you!”

There was no immediate response - the aformentioned brain still not done jumping around its cage of calcium and membranes.

Before the short bout of silence could go on too much, Ingo dragged Emmet back in a hug with the exact same strength as before, and his twin squeaked out an ‘oof!’ as his lungs were once again compressed into what he imagined to be something akin to the physical equivalent of a very low quality jpg image.

“You know we usually work later than this,” he managed to mumble with what little breath he still had left.

In the time that it took for his brother to gently release him from his iron embrace and murmur a vague sound of confusion (clearly he had spoken too softly for him to properly understand what he had said) he remembered that no, Ingo didn’t know they usually worked later than this.

In the same vague haze that had been plaguing him the whole day he elected to grasp his twin’s face in his hands before he had  the chance to dwell on the amnesia any more.

“I care you a lot,” he said plainly. Then, looking down at his own chest which still sort of ached: “I think you bruised me a rib.”

“OH NO-” Ingo began at full volume.

“-Exaggerating!” Emmet shouted back just in time before getting deafened again.“I am. Exaggerating. No bruises.”

“But are you hurt?”

“No.” Ingo’s face didn’t really get squeezed in that way that bothered him to no end anymore. Thank the Dragons he was too in need of a good night’s sleep to think about it too much. He blinked: “My back popped. But that’s good! If it pops, I needed that.”

“Are you certain? I haven’t-”

“Yes. All good.”

He noticed only then that his elbows were firmly held in his brother’s palms.

“You can let go if you want.”

Ingo looked at his own hands as if it was the first time he saw something like that: “Ah,” he stated, and did not move an inch. “I... Think the problem is that I don’t. Want to.”

Hm.

Well.

Goodness, his head was swimming.

“Excadrill didn’t get my knees yet,” Emmet noted.

“She usually runs into your knees?” the older twin asked mildly worried.

“Sometimes,” the younger shrugged. His eyes squeezed shut, he let his head fall on his brother’s shoulder: “Can we sit down?” he asked weakly. “ ‘m tired.”

Ingo all but dragged him as he followed, placid and willingly blind to avoid the already soft lights, to the couch, where Emmet leaned back completely on the cushions fully prepared to pass out.

“Don’t fall asleep,” he heard his brother say. “Elesa will be back shortly with dinner. You should not skip meals.”

He hummed flatly: “Why don’t you wanna let go?”

He heard him breathe in once, twice.

“It’s foolish,” came the reply.

Emmet gently patted the fingers still wrapped around his arm: “No it’s not,” he assured. “Don’t worry. Tell.”

The explanation made itself wait. It wasn’t a problem, by any means. The silence, for once that their Pokémon were allowed to rest in their Pokéball for the evening instead of being forced to sit out, felt comfortable. Maybe it was the way Ingo’s digits drummed on his elbows. With his eyes closed, he felt each one of them almost perfectly clearly. If only he wasn’t fighting not to doze of... Damned sleeping pill...

The rumble of his brother’s voice, so strangely quiet, reverberated through his fingertips right into Emmet’s nerves.

“It’s not been long since Elesa left,” he murmured, and he sounded awfully sheepish “But my team was fed and tucked back in their Pokéball, and I was... I was here alone for a moment and I...”

A soft noise - like swallowing air.

“I thought to myself-” he stopped; inhaled through half opened teeth.

Emmet waited.

“It would be horrible, to wake up now.”

Hm.

He opened his eyes slowly and turned his head feeling as if it were underwater. His twin was still there sat beside him, cradling his elbows in his hands, eyes to the floor as he probably throught himself unreasonable to be scared of something as improbable as thinking all of this had been only a complicated dream that would have left him to awaken in a hospital bed, or worse, in a snowy cavern on the side of a mountain.

“It would,” he agreed.

WIth no warning he leaned to his right, thunking his forehead directly against Ingo’s with a noise like mostly muffled wood against wood.

“I’d hate to wake up right now,” he noted.

“You’re already awake,” Ingo murmured.

“So are you. That’s good, no?”

His twin exhaled through his nose. His shoulders mellowed, and he allowed himself to lean against Emmet, nodding.

(It was selfishly relieving, in a sense.)

(To know they were both scared of that.)

He was forgetting something.

Oh, right.

“Get eeled.”

“What?”

A flash of dim light and Ingo’s entire body was suddenly squashed under a very excited Eelektross coiling around him with wet gurgles and smothering him in a hug, as his traitorous brother simply slid to faceplant on the smooth blue-green scales as satisfied as a Mandibuzz with an Emolga in its talons.

“He missed you,” he just said smugly.

The only reason there wasn’t an answer was because he then released the rest of his team, all exceedingly enthusiastic to see their friends’ trainer, and it took a good five minutes for the chittering mess to be petted and cooed into tranquillity.

Emmet yawned without covering his mouth, hand pulling at the corner of his eye: “Did you go to the fairgrounds with Elesa?”

“Uh? Oh! Yes, we did,” Ingo replied, a little distracted still by the weight of Durant directly on his stomach, the iron bug snuggling up to him with Galvantula, “She did - hold on, hold on, I’m talking! - she did mention she had told you... We took a ride on the ferris wheel, it was... Interesting, to see just how big Nimbasa is.”

It had been a little frightening, after being used to seeing almost the entire settlement by just standing in the right place.

“Hm... Did you go on her rollercoaster too?”

“No!”

Emmet jolted back into full consciousness with a start. His brother’s eyes widened apologetically, but he managed to assure him everything was alright with a wave of the hand.

“Why no?” he asked trying his best to stay awake and lucid.

Brought back to the infernal topic at hand, Ingo forgot to lower his voice as he explained: “That thing was far too fast to be safe! If I had sat on it for even one single run I would have spat out my bones at the first corner!”

His twin blinked.

“Spat?” he repeated.

“That metal bar that sits on your stomach -- the inertia of the stop would have sent me straight against it and I would have coughed out my own skeleton!”

It took a moment or two to digest that.

Then Emmet wordlessly, slowly, hid his face between his hands, trying to wipe at his eyes with his fingers, and bent to rest his forehead on his knees. In a moment his entire body began shaking and hiccuping as if he were sobbing, and his brother reached out for his shoulder in genuine worry. Had he said something wrong? Struck an uncovered nerve, a sensitive memory, used an expression that hit too close?

His tension must have been awfully loud, to the point where even the trembling lump next to him could hear him without even looking at him.

“I’m fah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ah-ine,” his brother reassured him.

All worry dropped together with Ingo’s hand and face. Emmet continued shaking uncontrollably, face still hidden.

“Don’t laugh at me,” Ingo ordered.

The younger twin complied by sinking further down between his knees and wheezing.

“I’m serious. I was terrified out of my wits.”

“I knoh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ow, I knoh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ow--”

“Emmet, please.”

“Okay! Oh-oh-- okay. Oh. Kay.”

Emmet inhaled loudly as he raised his torso upright once more. He breathed deeply once, twice, turned around, and wheezed right in his brother’s face.

“Emmet.” Ingo begged.

His plea fell on the deaf ears of sleep-deprived hilarity: his twin shook his head, unable to stop giggling to the point where all and any words he could have used to explain himself completely failed him.

His arm rose slightly before falling back down on his gut weakly. Bringing his other hand to his mouth, he mimicked the act of something jumping out of his lips with a sound that would have been something similar to a loud gagging noise if he had not burst into another wheezing fit halfway through it and folded on himself all over again. He repeated the motion and sound effect once, twice, thrice, louder and louder each time.

Ingo fought hard against a snort: “It’s not that funny,” he mumbled.

A howling fit of stunted laughter told him otherwise.

“It isn’t- you’re going to choke like that, please get up...”

His younger brother wiped away the tears in his eyes, still shaking: “I’m so tah-ah-ah-ah-ired,” he laughed.

The door unlocked.

“Hello, girlies and baby boys!” chirped Elesa. “I got us dinner!”

Emmet whipped around like a tornado, hand clawed to the back of the couch: “Eleh-eh-eh-eh-sa!” he cackled.

She looked at him trying to clamber over the piece of furniture, his older sibling holding him back so he did not fall face first on the floorboards, blue eyes widened in surprise: “You’re early,” she noted.

He clearly ignored her words to give speech another try: “Deh-hee-hee-hee-hee-id Ingo teh-eh-eh-ell you--”

“What?”

Verbal approach very obviously failing him, he attempted to perform his previous game of charades on her as well; unfortunately for him, he could not fight against his tired brain’s sense of humor, and had it not been for Ingo’s arm wrapping around his middle to catch him he would have collapsed on the pavement much like a creaky, precariously opened folding chair.

“Is, is he...?”

“He’s delirious,” Ingo replied as he attempted to straighten up his brother.

He only managed to shift his grip from his stomach to under his armpits as the conductor slipped until he was half sprawled on the floor, face up, still uncontrollably cackling.

Through the hands clumsily trying to cover his face to contain himself his eyebags peeked with the same color of a closed off Shellder.

Elesa worked her way through the kind beastiary that was making her arrival into a festivity by delivering pets and smooches left and right, emerging from their masses with the plastic bag of food still intact to sit on her knee before her friend, soft hands squishing his cheeks between them with a grin.

“You’re real Drowzee, aren’t you?” she cooed with a sort of exhasperation in her voice. “Bit off more than you could Chewtle with your bad sleep schedule?”

Ingo let out a genuine ‘hah!’ at her puns.

Emmet, unable to stop laughing, only mustered a quiet, wheezing: “Help.”

Yup.

If he couldn’t even be mad at her wordplay, he had it bad.

An arm slid under his backside so he could sit on it was enough for her to raise him up and let him lay against her shoulder (the sleep deprived mess of a man quickly wrapping himself around her in a jittering hug to remain stable) so that both her and the older twin could drag him back to the couch.

“Alright,” she decided as she tried to settle him down and unglue him from her, “Let’s get some food in you and then put you to bed at a reasonable hour, hm?”

Refusing to let her go even as she handed Ingo the take-out, Emmet managed to cup his hand around her ear and giggle something in it - something that had her look at his brother funny.

With a devious, incredulous smile and a cocked eyebrow, she read an intense dread in the otherwise unchanged expression as she began: “Is that why--?”

“Do NOT!” Ingo started off a bit too strong, frightening everything into silence.

He seemed to realize that as the quiet settled.

“Laugh.” he finished his sentence, very embarassed. “Please.”

“I’m not laughing!” Elesa tried to reassure him and failed, as that last syllable dissolved like sizzling bicarbonate in a glass of water.

The wide-eyed glare shot right into her soul she got for her faux-pas, accompanied by a blossoming wildfire on the poor man’s cheeks, didn’t exactly help the situation for either of them.

“I was sure that would have happened,” he murmured.

“I know.”

“Honestly.”

“I know, I trust you.”

“Don’t laugh.”

“I won’t laugh.”

“Please.”

“I. Will not. Laugh.”

Emmet didn’t necessarily have to agree to that part in his state, so he wheezed again, arms tight around his chosen sister, his brother right behind him. His face was as red as a Tamato Berry and his fingers were no longer fast enough to wipe away the tears of hilarity as they surfaced.

He looked happy.

He managed to pull himself up eventually, and calm down enough to eat; otherwise Archeops would have nibbled through the plastic and alluminum undisturbed and stolen his dinner.

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-pokemon-fan]

Easy. Fucking easy sauce battles. I played them perfectly. Read on for the biggest brain plays of this run so far.

Ghetsis sends out White Kyurem. I lead with Geometry Dash the Haxorus. I know this monstrosity has Dragon Breath and Ice Burn. Ice Burn takes two turns to actually deal damage, but Dragon Breath is still a major threat. So I gave G.D. a Haban Berry to weaken a supereffective Dragon type move against it. I also know that time was of the essence. I need a strong move to KO Kyurem with no deaths, because I need everyone to take down Ghetsis's team. So I delayed G.D.'s evolution. Haxorus learns Outrage at Lv 66, but Axew learns it at Lv 56. With that critical bit of planning done, I go into the battle. Before Kyurem has the chance to do anything, I use Outrage for 360 base power and KO it in one shot. Battle #1 out of the way.

Now Ghetsis challenges me with his team. I lead with Geometry Dash again versus his Cofagrigus. I use Shadow Claw to bring it to low HP. It poisons G.D. with Toxic, so I switch out to Zoroark disguised as Duke the Mienshao (you can't nickname Zoroark in this game without hacking and I was too lazy to do so). Cofagrigus foolishly uses Protect, ensuring a safe switch-in for me. I use Night Daze. The problematically-named coffin is down for the count.

Ghetsis sends out Hydreigon. I have four contingencies to deal with this motherfucker, putting supereffective moves on almost everyone on my team. So, I used the safest one and switched to Lucina the Lucario. She tanks the Dragon Rush and I use Aura Sphere to bring it to critical HP. It uses Dragon Rush again to no great consequence then kills itself with its own Life Orb. The big bad dragon ace is out.

Now he sends out Seismitoad. It 100% reads Earthquake as its strongest move, so I switch to Bad Dragon the Flygon, who has Levitate. No damage. Now it will probably use Muddy Water, so I pivot into Tree Meister the Sawsbuck. It does use Muddy Water, but it misses anyway. I hit with a 450 BP Horn Leech to OHKO the poor bastard.

Ghetsis brings in Eelektross. Yeah, yeah, it has Flamethrower. But see, I brought Tree Meister for two reasons. First was to take out Seismitoad. Second was to use Aromatherapy to cure Cofagrigus's Toxic victim. Thus, Geometry Dash was saved from Poison and ready to rejoin the fray. Eelektross kills Tree Meister, but that's just what I want. Pain me though it does, I don't need him anymore in this run. What I do need is a free switch-in to G.D..

Normally, Eelektross is immune to Ground moves because of its Levitate. But I got RNG blessed when I caught my Axew, because it has Mold Breaker, which deals damage ignoring abilities. G.D. uses Bulldoze, tanks a Thunderbolt, and Bulldozes again to take out the gross eel thing.

Now Ghetsis sends out Drapion. He's getting desperate. It doesn't have any supereffective moves on G.D., but I still don't want to risk his safety any more than I have to. This Drapion has Sniper, which ups crit damage from 2x to 3x. I switch to Bad Dragon. Drapion's Poison Fang hits for 1/2x damage, barely scratching my beautiful Flygon. One Earth Power obliterates the bug that isn't even a Bug type.

It's time. Ghetsis's final Pokémon, a Toxicroak. I still have five mons in my team. I haven't even needed to use Duke. Unfortunately for the winner of the Worst Dad of the Century award, it's also weak to Ground. Bad Dragon uses Earth Power one more time and finishes it off. Just like that, I won. A perfect plan for a perfect battle. Hell yeah.

As for my whole team being at Lv 57 while his ace was Lv 52, I didn't break the level cap rule. Elite Four is at 58. Besides, I needed Zoroark and Geometry Dash to be at Lv 57 to have access to Night Daze and Outrage. My point is that I planned this battle masterfully with the Pokémon at my disposal. Everyone played their part with grace and much poise. I salute Tree Meister for his sacrifice. Thanks to him, the rest of my team is alive to see future victories.

Now I move on to Victory Road. I have one more battle against Hugh and a few particularly nasty mandatory trainer battles, but I've made it this far. Nothing but, uh, probably Marshal using Rock type moves like an asshole, can stop me.

Well I reached Ghetsis in attempt 3 of my hardcore Pokémon White 2 Challenge Mode Nuzlocke. Taking a break to actually be productive and whatnot, but now it’s just time to team build. I can’t lose to this fucker here and my box is bursting with great Pokémon. Gotta take it slow. Gotta check myself before I wreck myself. Because I will wreck myself if I rush in. I know that very well at this point.

[phoenix-manga]

Malleus and Dragon Pokémon:

Malleus once found out that Phoebe has “Dragons” with her and they all seemed unusual. He isn’t one to miss his chance to meet such powerful dragons from another world.

Charizard 

“This beast bears a resemblance to the Witch of Thorn’s dragon form… Pardon? It’s not a dragon type? But it looks like a dragon…”

Malleus met Charizard the first time he came to walk by Ramshackle only to find someone occupying it. Needless to say, he was stunned to see a dragon that resembled the dragon of legend of the great Witch of Thorns.

He felt like a child as he wanted to approach Charizard who was lounging at the lawn. But it spots Malleus and thought he was a threat, maybe because of the powerful aura he puts out.

Poor Malleus was a bit sad that it doesn’t like him. It wasn’t until he formally meets Phoebe that he finally got to know Charizard. Charizard tensed up when it sees Malleus again but when Phoebe convinced it that Malleus meant no harm, the Pokémon finally relaxed and allowed Malleus to stroke his wings and tail.

Malleus was fascinated, though there were other dragons and dragon fae back at the valley, he has never seen anything like Charizard before. He can feel a different power coming from it, almost enormous. It was probably the Dynamax energy though.

Once the two got along, Charizard would do anything to look cool, Malleus’ first compliments to it fueled the Pokémon’s ego. It would stretch its wing span and perform flying tricks when Malleus showed up to the dorm.

Gible

“Quite a spritely one you are… and your tendency to affectionately bite what you like, fufu~ Lilia would definitely find such delight with you”

The first time Gible met Malleus was … awkward. Trainer was just taking Gible for a walk when Malleus showed up and Gible immediately clamped its mouth on his leg. It wasn’t a hard bite, just enough to grip on his limb.

Malleus and Phoebe stared at Gible for a minute. Phoebe shook her head and asked Malleus to lift his leg to get Gible off. Malleus complies, though he was still confused.

Phoebe tried pulling but it was impossible! Gible didn’t let go and was even giggling, thinking it was a game. Phoebe explains to Malleus that Gible likes to affectionately chomp people and objects it likes. Though he tried to keep a poker face, he was delighted to see how this tiny shark creature liked him upon seeing him.

It was starting to get a bit late too, Malleus proposed to take Gible back to the dorm until I lets go. Phoebe was worried because Sebek will find out and he’ll descend to her dorm with his “Uproar”, Malleus tells her not worry and he teleports off with Gible.

Needless to say, Lilia was laughing while Silver and Sebek were staring awkwardly at him with Gible just enjoying hitching a ride on the tall male.

Sebek immediately goes to pry it off his leg and when Gible sees him approach, it mistook his angry aura with a gesture of play. Immediately it let go of Malleus and hopped onto Sebek’s face as his head was almost in Gible’s mouth.

The poor boy’s muffled screams can be heard in the room and Lilia was too busy laughing his guts out while Silver wanted to see him suffer a bit more.

After 5 minutes, Malleus decides to get it off Sebek before he is completely covered in slobber, he gestures to Gible to come down Sebek and the precious Pokémon obliges. It clung to his arm instead, Malleus certainly thinks that Gible will bring so much entertainment to the dorm.

Haxorus

“Sleeping again? You certainly live a luxurious life, fufu~ The Child of man must spoil you rotten”

Haxorus comes by the Diasomnia dorm often that it has a personal sleeping spot whenever Malleus was given permission to bring Haxorus over.

Though he makes sure to keep Lilia from feeding it any of his… dangerous concoctions. Phoebe makes sure to stuff Haxorus with food that it will just sleep when it arrives at Diasomnia.

On occasions that it was awake, Malleus and the others wanted to see how strong it was. Haxorus obliged to show off a bit, since Phoebe was not here to give orders. It merely just used Dragon Claw on some training dummies.

The students were in awe of its power that they now see Phoebe in a different light. Though what Malleus enjoyed was having a stroll with Haxorus through the woods and when they came across a flower patch, Haxorus would dart to the flowers to pick or smell them.

There were even days where Haxorus would help nurture the garden in the dorm. It was so adorable to see it use a garden shovel to dig up dirt rather than just using its claws. Lilia comments how it was like a curious child and reminisces the memory he had when Silver tried to help him with chores too, much to Silver’s embarrassment.

Malleus enjoys its very adorable habits that would be considered not very dragon-like. Haxorus would definitely return to the dorm with an armful of flowers in a post given by Malleus.

Appletun

“This creature resembles a dessert and smells like it too. And yet the researchers in your world classified this as a fearsome dragon? Fascinating…”

The Diasomnia quartet were just passing by Ramshackle when all of a sudden there was a strong smell of sweet apples. They followed it thinking that Phoebe was making some sweets but they spot Appletun that was eating from its bowl contentedly.

Lilia chuckles how plump it looked. Realizing that the scent came from this creature, they were a bit disappointed that they probably won’t be getting any shares of supposed sweets from Phoebe but the sight of Appletun coming to greet them as it trotted to their direction was quite an adorable sight.

Appletun rubbed itself on Sebek’s leg because he happened to be the nearest out of the four. Sebek froze and was unaware of what to do, he remembers that Phoebe said that Pokémon were unpredictable and one must always be careful of interacting with them.

Sebek thought that this apple pie monster would harm his waka-sama or something. Sure Sebek… the Pokémon that rolled over getting belly rubs from Lilia is a threat to Malleus.

Lilia urges Malleus to pet it, and he does so. He can feel something pleasant bloom in his chest as Appletun leans against his palm, wanting more affection.

Then it nudged Malleus to a sitting position as it plops itself on his lap. Appletun then started to take a nap on him. Thankfully, they didn’t have any classes right now so the four are content to sit in the lawn while the Pokémon napped.

Silver was wondering where Phoebe was this whole time, they didn’t realize that she was at a part-time job and missed such an adorable sight. But fortunately for her, Lilia was gracious enough to take pictures for her.

Dragapult

“This parental dragon is as mischievous as Lilia. I see you have your hands full with this one, Child of Man”

When Lilia brought Dragapult over to prank Sebek and Silver, they encountered malleus in the hallway. Malleus paused when he spots an unusual dragon that looked part machine and part ghost.

Before Lilia could introduce the Pokémon to Malleus, Dragapult immediately darts towards him and shot out its Dreepy towards him.

Malleus braced for some kind of attack, though he probably won’t be fazed, but he was caught off guard. Instead of some sort of impact, he felt something wriggle on his head. The Dreepy it shot at him were curling themselves around his horns

It was making a mess of his hair and giggling while doing so. Malleus was very confused while Lilia on the other hand, was wheezing as he looks at the feared Draconia prince being played with by small dragons who were using his horns as a jungle gym.

Dragapult floated beside Malleus and after about a few minutes of fun with him, it calls back its Dreepies that crawled back into the holes in its head.

That was quite an experience, Dragapult was a very sneaky one that is one thing Malleus can say about that startling first impression.

He lets Dragapult get away with its pranks since they were not too terrible and got him to chuckle a few times. Whenever the Dreepy were on his horns, he would have a small pillow to place them on and were given a bowl of food when he has to get up for something. The Dreepies loved being pampered by Malleus.

Dragapult seemed to appreciate him being so caring towards its babies so it lessens its pranks towards him and would nuzzle him more often, poor Sebek and other Diasomnia students would get pranked so often.

Drampa

“A protector of children… Yet your owner mentioned how you would show no mercy if you were wronged. How intriguing~”

It was during Halloween when Malleus asked to have Drampa stationed at the venue entrance is where he sees the large yet gentle Pokémon allowed children to climb and ride on it.

It reminded him of Lilia’s tender nature while he was raising Silver. Yet he can also feel the strong power that it possessed, meaning that it was still carrying the fury of a dragon if it gets provoked.

He witnessed said fury when the magicam monsters went and shoved people out of the way and cut off the kids who waited for their turn. Drampa’s hair went up as it let out a loud roar and was about to send a twister to blow away the rude guests but thankfully, Lilia and the others were able to use magic to send the guests away and clam down Drampa.

While Malleus was thankful that there were no more troublesome humans, it was a shame that he didn’t get to witness Drampa lay waste to those disrespectful humans.

He was caught off guard when Drampa nudged him and blew a pretty strong wind at his face that made his hair stick out a bit, it looked like it was playing with him.

Lilia chuckles and remembers that Phoebe told him all about Drampa, how it was a guardian of children yet would be strong enough to summon twisters to destroy villages that dare to anger it.

It must have thought he was a kid, Malleus pouts and reminds Lilia he’s older than the average human child. But Lilia insists that he had some moments of child-like behavior despite his years of age.

Malleus pouts as Lilia takes a photo of him in Drampa’s arms while the children were enjoying climbing on the Pokémon once again.

Dracovish

“Now this is quite the odd creature... two halves that aren't similar yet still this one barely manages to go about its day..."

Bonus:

Malleus legit thought that this Pokemon was just an odd-looking statue but the moment it blinked he knows it's not a statue at all...

He's even more confused when Phoebe introduced the Pokemon to him as a Water and Dragon type.

It did look a bit dragon-like but it was very much a fish, wasn't it? An top of that, the mood swings are hard to predict, one monet it's gine but then a second after, it wants to eat you.

He worries about Phoebe whenever he sees her with a feeding pole. Such a small child of man trying to handle a ravenous dragon all by herself. As a dragon fae he has seen his fair share of... unpleasant dragons in his youth.

Malleus and Dracovish end up having this rivalry dynamic where if one acts up, the other would scold it. Dracovish is so bold to square up to Malleus like that

Malleus finds out the dragon master Lance

“Hmm? A fabled dragon master in your world? Tell me more about this “Lance” you speak so highly of…”

“Hearing stories about dragons on your home reminds me of this great trainer that I once battled against”, Phoebe has a thoughtful look on her face as Malleus looks back at her with intrigue at what she said.

“Really? What kind of trainer were they?”

“He was the Johto Champion, Lance and he was called a dragon master with how he battled with Dragon-types!”

“You speak of this man so admirably, I’m guessing that he was a strong beast tamer in your world then…”

Malleus chuckled, the sparkle in Phoebe’s eyes were endearing as she told him stories of the great Lance of Johto.

He admits that while he has no experience of how Pokémon battles functioned, Phoebe’s explanation of the man’s skills made him comparable to the Witch of Thorns, almost.

But still, he can’t help but imagine how strong this Lance fellow was, Phoebe was strong and proved to be skilled at strategy when commanding their creatures in battle. He should know, she fought his overblot with her team of Pokémon.

So, the thought of someone even being stronger than this small child of man made him curious.

“A beast tamer who commands the dragons, huh? I’m almost envious… I would like to see myself training alongside those creatures from your world, it all sounds fascinating”

“Just wait till you hear how I fought against him and lost!”

He admits that the thought of becoming a trainer like Phoebe was a dream he wished to experience at least once. He continues to listen to Phoebe talk about Lance and his status as the regional champion.

[waywardstation]

(Further elaboration for the PLA Anime AU.) Haxorus tried to protect Ingo from the Xurkitree swarming them (who initially weren't hostile, and instead just curious), and ended up using Earthquake when one got too close. Next thing Haxorus knows after using Earthquake, she's literally washing up with the tide on an Alolan beach, covered in electric burns, and paralyzed from the electricity-and Ingo is nowhere to be found. Worse, while it was only an hour for her, she was gone for two years.

Continuation of this ask

Man Haxorus, you shouldn’t have used earthquake! Maybe Emmet was right when he kept begging Ingo to have Haxorus learn a different move haha

But poor Haxorus! :( hope the people of Alola treat her nicely while she’s there!

For the same subject these asks are about

Oh man, that’s an interesting plot! It’s always entertaining to watch the aftermath of something that happened when it shouldn’t have. If it’s about taking over the world, maybe Rocket might work best (though Cipher would be interesting too with shadow Pokémon, we need more colosseum rep!!)

Love these ideas anon, thanks for sharing!

[ingoappreciation]

Please talk about your full team!!

Right! Bravo! Thank you anon! Since returning to Unova, I have taken the oppertunity to learn who my original team was.  The Pokemon whose flames are purple and it wielded flames with mastery! My partner Chandelure. She was my starter pokemon and had been by my side for such a long time. She is so happy to see me back, letting out small trills every time she sees me.  Excadrill is another one of my partners, very determined in battle. He is an excellent battler, giving his all in each and every battle he partakes in. Nothing can stop him when his destination is set! Haxorus was a partner that was gifted to me by my Uncle, as a small Axew. Emmet and I were both gifted twin Axews to aid us on our gym challenge. Emmet likes to complain that I kill his Eelektross when I have him use earthquake. That’s his fault though. Earthquake is a powerful move. Crustle is a strudy partner who is always ready to depart from their pokeball and battle to his hearts content. He has rock hard willpower and is a wonderful ally in my single battles! Klingklang, that’s right, one of a set, Emmet and I were adventuring chargestone cave looking for a tynamo to add to Emmet’s team when we were ambushed by a rather fiesty pair of Klink. I guess they wanted to test out our strength? Emmet and I tag teamed the pair and captured them in matching premier balls. They are just like crustle, a nice sturdy partner! Garbardor... she was found digging in the trashcan in our apartment complex. Someone had outright abandoned her, so I took her in despite Emmet’s complaining. Her scent became more bearable over time, and I learned she really loves Pecha berries. I have to keep a good stash of them on hand between needing them for poor Emmet, and giving her some as a treat. 

[sage-nebula]

Okay now that I have seen the episode in full, my thoughts:

Pros:

1.) It was a full battle and it was really close. Iris legitimately might've won if Cynthia hadn't mega evolved Garchomp. I'm glad that she at least got to have a full battle with skill showcased, which is way more than what Alan got, my poor boy.

2.) Cynthia whispered, "You're marvelous, Iris" at one point which was so heartwarming, and also so true.

3.) I love that they included a part where Iris connected to Haxorus using her special power. She is The Girl Who Understands the Hearts of Dragons, after all, and I'm glad that was showcased on the world stage.

4.) The music was great, but a particular shoutout needs to go to the ominous fucking organ and chanting that started up when Garchomp came out LMAO. Cynthia was channeling her ancestor Volo for that and I about died laughing. (Also I'm pretty sure that was TSME music that started up when Cynthia mega evolved her Garchomp but I'm not positive.)

5.) Alan got lines! And in particular, even though he a.) has a personal connection to a garchomp back home, and b.) is a mega evolution specialist and researcher, he still didn't automatically throw his lot in with Cynthia when she mega evolved Garchomp and even countered Steven by saying Haxorus had so much potential. Alan was lowkey rooting for Iris. What a king.

Cons:

1.) Dragonite went down in two hits . . . seriously? Really? Sure one was super effective, but that bit was over way too fast and felt really rushed for time. Dragonite was jobbed hard and didn't deserve such shame.

2.) Where tf was Cilan?? Iris was in her most important battle to date and he was, what, fishing?? Did he drown in Kalos? Was he hit by a train? Did Xerosic find and murder him? I need answers.

3.) Cynthia's mega evolution invocation, if we can even call it that, was lame as hell. "I will defeat you with all my might" . . . really? That's the best you can do? This is the woman who, in the same battle, gave us lines like "fall, stars of the heavens" for regular attacks like Draco Meteor, and then she has such a lame-ass mega evolution invocation . . . for reference, in the anime trainers who use mega evolution all have an invocation that represents their feelings toward mega evolution. Alan's is famously "respond to my heart" because to him, mega evolution is about the bond between him and Lizardon. Steven's is a line about the stones because that's what he's most interested in. Lysandre's was all about power because to him, mega evolution is about more power to kill people with. So you would expect Cynthia to have a cool one . . . and then she didn't, smh. As a mega evolution nerd, I was disappointed.

4.) Iris lost. I had a feeling she was going to because Cynthia is so popular, and honestly I wouldn't want to see Ash beat Iris again (and we know he has to win to reach Leon, so there are no stakes in any of his battles tbh), but it was still not the result I wanted. Don't get me wrong, I love Cynthia. I'm a lesbian, of course I love Cynthia. But I love Iris too and I feel that it would have meant so much more, emotionally, had she defeated her senior. Plus, I hate seeing my favorite characters cry their eyes out, so there's that, too.

5.) They really just had Ash stand there like a tree while Iris bawled her eyes out, huh . . . you know, I was really mad about that earlier today and I still think it's ass, but as I watched the episode in full tonight I realized that he was smiling while she cried, and that made it hit me. It's because he's the Alola Champion. And in SM, the player character (who also becomes Alola's first Champion) just stands there with a vapid smile on their face while seriously traumatic and upsetting events occur right in front of them. Like Lusamine ranted about how she had no children and how ugly and worthless Lillie and Gladion were to their faces and the MC just stood there like ":)" So apparently, now that Ash is the Alola Champion, he does the same thing. Iris is sobbing? It's all good! He smiles while elevator music plays in his head. This is totally fine. (It's not fine but this is how I'm coping with that asinine decision.)

Anyway, I've got an idea for a little tag I want to write to make myself feel better after this, so stay tuned for that. I haven't written anything in ages and I'm sure that my skills are so rusty they could infect the entire internet with tetanus at once, but I am going to do my best.

[smallersocksx]

Pokemon Character Analysis V2: Iris

I wrote an analysis of Iris’ character a while ago. However, a user challenged me to go more in-depth with my analysis and I did have more points to write about Iris as well. I was able to watch episode 65 as well so I’ll be combining my opinions on the episode with this analysis.

As with all my reviews/analyses, I’ll keep them under the cut. So, if you want to keep reading, that’s great!

Introduction:

As many people that have read my previous reviews and know me, may know I am a huge fan of the Diamond and Pearl games and anime series. I will be the first to say, I know Diamond and Pearl wasn’t a perfect series, honestly, there is no such thing as a perfect series. But as a follow-up to DP, Black and White was definitely a let-down for a lot of fans, either because of completely resetting Ash’s knowledge which was honestly an insult to his DP incarnation, his travelling companions or the fact that he lost to Cameron of all people in the Vertress Conference. BW in some aspects left a lot to be desired.

Nevertheless, this post is focusing on Iris, a companion similar to Goh, a lot of fans love to hate particularly because of her infamous catchphrase “You’re such a kid.” Looking back, this was one of the things that did make me drop the series, keep in mind I was 11 when BW started airing. So, hearing a character that is meant to be the same age or younger than you say "You’re such a kid!” Over and over again, got annoying quite quickly.

However, looking back the usage of that infamous catchphrase was probably exaggerated. Whilst, working past that I still didn’t come to love Iris. Considering, Iris is meant to be one of the main characters and similar to Goh, they are meant to be written in a way that makes us want to see them grow, cheer them on and be happy when they succeed. Nonetheless, when you look at the way they are written and their development it just makes it abundantly clear that Iris and Goh are the victims of poor writing.

Iris’ Initial Characterisation:

The aspect that made me drop the series was Iris’ initial characterisation particularly the infamous phrase “You’re such a kid” which as I mentioned in the introduction, with the benefit of hindsight I can see the usage of it has been exaggerated. Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact that it was annoying. Especially, given when Ash meets Iris, he had defeated legendries by this point, acquired 36 badges (that’s including the Orange Archipelago badges) and defeated the Battle Frontier. Whereas Iris may have had good battling prowess and at one point had a 99-battle winning streak, but, her Axew was a newborn with hardly any battling experience and her Excadrill was refusing to listen to her.

Many people use the defence that Misty called Ash a kid yet she doesn’t nearly receive as much hate. To be fair, when Misty met Ash, he was a rookie trainer and Misty was a gym leader, so Misty at least had the position and knowledge to back her up. However, this was only an issue at the beginning of the series and the insults tend to die down, but, that initial characterisation is what stopped me from watching the series since my 11-year-old self did not have the patience for that.

Iris’ Character:

Just like every person has their flaws, every fictional character has them as well – it's what makes us human. Every single one of our favourite characters has their share of flaws that they acknowledge and eventually overcome for Dawn it was overconfidence, for May her naiveté, Serena her lack of direction, Clemont his lack of self-confidence. The list could honestly go on and on. 

For Iris, it was her immaturity. One could look at the fact, her calling Ash out on his own immaturity, her being hypocritical. However, Iris could have easily been using this as a coping/defence mechanism for dealing with that aspect of her personality.  During her time at Opelucid Academy when she was younger, Iris’ immaturity caused her to struggle with forming relationships with the other students and feel isolated. 

However, just like Dawn and to some extent Goh, Iris struggled with overconfidence in the past as well. After Iris caught Excadrill as a Drilbur, the two battled other trainers and Pokémon frequently culminating in a 99-battle winning streak that triggered Drilbur’s evolution. Iris then battled Drayden without considering the possibility that she was outmatched against Drayden and his Haxorus. Iris and Excadrill subsequently lost the battle and Excadrill closed himself off from his trainer.

In this scenario, it was a combination of Iris’ immaturity and overconfidence that resulted in Excadrill’s loss of faith in her as a trainer. As she never considered, his feelings throughout the battle. Nevertheless, overconfidence, when we meet her in the present wasn’t necessarily an issue as the battle, she had with Drayden was probably a humbling experience similar to Dawn’s losses in the Performance stages of Contests. 

The stepping stones towards Iris maturing begin in Iris and Excadrill Against the Dragon Buster! Which was honestly one of my favourite episodes of BW. Not only as Iris, opened up to Ash and Cilan, but forced her to confront her own issues with communicating and forming relationships with others. Which was honestly a refreshing twist on the rebellious Pokémon story. 

This is what makes Dragonite’s arc and disobedience all the more frustrating as I feel as though, it diminishes Excadrill’s arc and Iris’ development. As Iris, initially, didn’t understand Dragonite’s disobedient behaviour, which, to be fair, I don’t blame her as Dragonite willingly joined her party only to turn around, completely ignore her commands in battle and not even fully acknowledge her as his trainer. 

As I mentioned in the previous section, as the series went on, the insults on Ash’s maturity did die down. This could have been for several reasons, Ash and Iris understandably grew closer as they travelled, Iris began to feel more comfortable with herself and her flaws particularly after her battle with Drayden. I speculate because BW doesn’t really flesh out the characters as much as other series have in the past. 

Although, one final aspect, I find rather strange about her character is her Cryophobia (fear of the cold/ice). Iris’ logic for this fear being that Dragon-types are weak to Ice-types however as Trip pointed out Dragon-types are also weak to other Dragon-types. Yet Iris just shrugs this comment off, and, later we see her battling against other Ice-types and apparently got over this phobia in Crisis at Ferroseed Research! When she was trapped in a room with her rival’s Vanilluxe and commanded it to help them and others escape. I’m aware phobias are meant to be irrational but I have to agree with Trip that even Iris’ logic towards her phobia was a tad irrational. There is a difference between disliking something and being scared of it, as Iris, at one point had stated she disliked the cold. I understand this was probably played out for comedic aspects but it was just strange and stupid. Especially, given the fact in the games and manga adaptation, she owns a Lapras.

Moving on, to the more positive aspects of Iris’ personality. Whilst, Iris may have suffered socially with human characters, she is shown to have found it easier to form connections with Pokémon in general, not just Dragon-types. Iris’ ability to befriend Pokémon, could easily stem from the fact she grew up in a rural area of a, particularly urban region. This aspect of Iris’ character has aided her on several occasions such as Baffling the Bouffalant! Whilst lost in Bouffalant territory, Iris performed first aid on an injured Bouffalant, Iris’ kindness was later rewarded when the Bouffalant helped guide the group outside of its territory. 

Another example of Iris’ ability to empathize with Pokémon, is shown in A Village Homecoming! In which, Iris was able to calm a distressed Hydreigon with the help of her Pokémon. This was honestly, one of Iris’ best moments in the series as it reflected Iris’ growth from her ability to understand a Pokémon’s emotions to her abilities as a Dragon Master. 

In addition to her ability to befriend Pokémon with ease, Iris is shown to be free-spirited (which is probably a result of the environment she was raised in), confident in her abilities and able to speak her mind. Whilst apprehensive of Ash at the beginning, she is shown to care for him as the series continues, this can be reflected in Ash’s battle with Roxie, where Iris opted to act as a cheering squad for Ash similar to what Dawn did for him. 

Iris is shown to be an adept battler, this can be reflected in the fact she once had a 99-battle winning streak and won the Club Battle.  

Iris’ Goal:

Iris’ goal is to become a Dragon Master, however, by the end of Black and White, Iris opts to travel to Johto to battle Clair and following the conclusion of that battle she opts to follow the direction she saw Rayquaza flying. When I look at this conclusion, I’m honestly confused, I have no sense of whether or not Iris is any closer to achieving her goal. Or even throughout the series, we get no sense of how anyone who wants to master any Pokémon typing reaches their goal, a majority of type specialists typically end up in the position of Gym Leader or Elite Four. But Iris never once expressed a desire to be a Gym Leader or any higher-ranking position. Which, makes Drayden decision to choose Iris as his successor, all the more unusual to me. I suppose in one way it gives Iris a position/goal to work towards but given Iris’ free-spirited personality, having someone choose her path rather than choosing it herself feels unnatural.

Additionally, an obvious method to becoming a type specialist is catching Pokémon of the same type you want to specialize in and little more than half of Iris’ team actually consist of Dragon-types. I understand Gym Leaders having at least one alternative type to give their team diversity and cover their weaknesses. As shown by Candice owning a Medicham and Piers having a Toxtricity in his party later in the SW/SH games. But, Excadrill fits the bill more than Emolga as Excadrill is part of Steel-type which covers Iris’ team’s weaknesses to Ice and the newly introduced Fairy-types. That is not to say that I dislike Emolga or anything but it felt like she was an unusual catch.

I think if the writers did a better job as well at establishing Iris’ goals – we understand she wants to be a Dragon Master, but does she want to become a gym leader? A caretaker of Dragon-types (similar to Liza of Charicific Valley)? If they had established this from the beginning, we would have had a better understanding of the direction they wanted to take with Iris’ development.

Iris and her Pokemon:

Now, this is one aspect of Iris’ story that I felt could have definitely been written better, as I mentioned, Iris wants to be a Dragon Master, however, only 3/5 of her team are actually Dragon-types. In addition to this, throughout the series, Iris has attempted to catch Pokémon outside of her type specialities such as Ash’s Oshawott, Tepig and even Team Rocket’s Meowth. Moreover, Iris is meant to be a highly skilled trainer, yet she’s had more disobedient Pokémon than any other main character aside from Axew and Gible the rest of Iris’ Pokémon have been disobedient at some point. Which, kind of reflects poorly on her skills and character. 

Axew:

I like to think of the characters’ first Pokémon or their partner Pokémon as a mirror reflecting their growth. Take May and Blaziken, they mirror one another’s development perfectly as when Blaziken was a Torchic much like May, he was inexperienced and unsure of himself. When Torchic evolved to Combusken, at this point May had won two Contest Ribbons and began to feel confident in her Coordinating skills. Once, Torchic evolved into Combusken he developed that same level of confidence, he didn’t feel the need to compete for May’s attention and wasn’t bullied or intimidated by other Pokémon like Ash’s Corphish. Then Combusken evolves to Blaziken in the penultimate episode, once May had decided to leave the group, travel through Johto on her own and find her own battling style. At this point, May has chosen to become independent and this reflects in Combusken, her first Pokémon evolving into his final stage. My point being I like to think every travelling companions’ ace reflects their character growth and I don’t get that same feeling with Iris and Axew.

The whole point of Iris’ journey was to raise Axew into a Haxorus. For a majority of the series, Axew was Iris’ only Dragon-type and in the sixth episode, he has a dream of evolving into his final stage. After that, the idea of Axew evolving is hardly addressed. As I’ve mentioned, evolving or choosing not to evolve are one method of allowing Pokémon to develop, considering, Axew has expressed a desire to evolve, I think he should have at least evolved into Fraxure before the BW series concluded. As aside from him learning Dragon-type moves and developing as a battler, once, Dragonite’s introduced he’s kind of pushed to the sidelines and doesn’t develop any further. 

Even in Iris’ battle against Clair she opts to use Dragonite instead and develops a telepathic connection with him? (I honestly don’t know). Surely, if Iris is going to develop a telepathic bond with any of her Pokémon it should be Axew, her starter. They could have utilised the battle with Clair as a way for Axew to evolve, they could have still lost but Iris and Axew (or Fraxure) would have developed and deepened their bond. 

In Episode 65 of Journeys, just as many fans predicted Axew had evolved all the way to his final evolution, Haxorus. My only issue with this is why couldn’t he have at least evolved once during his time in BW. I think many fans would have loved to have seen the moment Axew had evolved into Fraxure and later Haxorus. 

Excadrill:

Out of all of Iris’ Pokémon, Excadrill is probably my favourite despite the fact he’s not even a Dragon-type. What I love about Excadrill, is the twist in the rebellious Pokémon story, don’t get me wrong I loved the arcs with Ash’s Charizard and Dawn’s Mamoswine but I love it when they spice up or change the formula. In this scenario, it was Iris’ immaturity and inability to understand her Pokémon’s feelings that caused Excadrill to close himself off. Excadrill’s arc was honestly one of my favourite arcs of BW, as Excadrill acted as the trigger to Iris’ character development. 

Not to mention for a while, Excadrill was Iris’ ace, understandably as in the beginning, Axew was still developing as a battler and Emolga had her little Volt Switch tactic. There’s also the fact, Excadrill helps cover Iris’ team weaknesses to Ice and later the newly introduced Fairy type also being part Steel-type, Excadrill resists Dragon-type moves. Not to mention, Excadrill helped Iris win the Club Battle, battled against Tornadus and Thundrus and drew against Drayden’s Haxorus after losing to the Axe Jaw Pokémon many years ago. Is just a testament, to Excadrill’s strength.

However, I use the phrase “for a while”, since like the rest of the Iris’ Pokémon, once, Dragonite’s introduced they are kind of pushed to the side and don’t develop any further. However, despite the lack of character development following his arc, I still love Excadrill and his story.

Emolga:

Now, Emolga is a Pokémon, I’m not sure how I feel about it. I loved her personality, but my issue is why did Iris need to catch Emolga? Emolga is an Electric/Flying-type, so she doesn’t really aid in Iris reaching her goal nor does her typing contribute strategically to Iris’ team as she doesn’t help cover any weaknesses. Also, aside from her initial disobedience when she’s first caught, Emolga doesn’t really experience any character development, she doesn’t have a character arc like Excadrill or has a rival (aside from Snivy) that she has to overcome. 

I honestly don’t have much to say about Emolga, as they never really gave her story, she just felt like an unusual catch.

Dragonite:

I will be honest; I am not a huge fan of Iris’ Dragonite. Firstly, it felt as though, the writers forgot to give her an additional Dragon-type and just rewarded her with this random Dragonite. Secondly, there is the fact, that Dragonite was disobedient towards Iris despite the fact he joined her team willingly. Thirdly, he single handedly ruins all of the character development Iris had built up to that point. During the Pokémon World Tournament Junior Cup, Iris has tantrums during her battles when Dragonite doesn’t listen to her. His continuous victories, caused Iris to be overconfident, kept using him despite the risks and was surprised when she lost. After the match, Cynthia explains Dragonite doesn’t have complete confidence in Iris as a trainer. My question ends up being, why join someone you don’t have complete and utter confidence in? Did Dragonite see some sort of potential in Iris? I honestly don’t know. I just found Dragonite’s whole arc frustrating as he completely diminished Iris’ development up to that point and undermines Excadrill’s arc.  

Iris has had some of her best moments throughout the series with the other Unovan Dragon-types such as Druddigon and Deino both of which would have been great captures for her particularly Deino as she has a Hydreigon in the games.

Also, HE. SHOULD. HAVE. LOST. TO. DAWN’S. MAMOSWINE!!!! (and I’m not just saying that because I love Dawn and her Mamoswine)

Additionally, for every trainer we’ve had so far, their ace tends to be their starter. However, with Iris at one stage it was Excadrill and later it became Dragonite. During, Iris’ battle with Clair, she develops a telepathic connection with him (I honestly didn’t understand), we’ve seen trainers communicate with their Pokémon, non-verbally but they’ve all tended to be Psychic-types, which is what makes this scenario stranger. Dragonite ends up overshadowing the rest of Iris’ Pokémon and they don’t develop any further after he joins the party. 

If the writers absolutely felt that they had to give Iris a Dragonite, they could have at least done it whilst she was in Johto since Dragonite’s pre-evolutions can be found in Dragon’s Den and Route 45. It honestly would have made more sense than giving her a Gible which isn’t even native to Johto and we haven’t even been given a hint on whether or not Gible is appearing in the next episode.

Pokémon Conclusion:

I know Iris caught a Gible and Episode 65 mentioned she caught a Goodra (which I honestly don’t why they keep giving her the same Pokémon as Ash) but I don’t know enough about either of them to write anything analytically. Generally, I tend to love certain Pokémon because of the way they are portrayed in the anime or whether they belonged to a certain character I liked. Nevertheless, a character’s Pokémon team is meant to help contribute towards their development. However, with Iris’ team it is difficult to say, Excadrill for a short period definitely contributed towards Iris’ growth, but I felt that was ruined by Dragonite’s appearance. It doesn’t help that Haxorus evolved off-screen so we don’t even get to see the build-up towards his evolution. That’s why I feel like Iris’ Pokémon could have been one aspect of her character that could have been written better.

Iris’ Rivals:

We’ve had some amazing rivals throughout the series, some of my favourite rivals include Drew, Paul, Ursula, the list could go on and on. For me a good rival is someone I’m cheering on the main character to beat, I feel disappointed when they don’t and ecstatic and proud when they do. The BW series introduced a plethora of rivals not only for Ash, even Iris and Cilan had their own rivals. 

For Iris, it was a girl called Georgia, who aims to defeat every Dragon-type trainer after suffering a defeat from a trainer at the Village of Dragons. When Georgia, is first introduced alongside Excadrill, I felt as though she was a trigger for Iris’ character development as she unintendedly triggered the events that allowed Iris to repair her relationship with Excadrill. However, it goes downhill, a rival is meant to encourage the main characters to better themselves and work hard to eventually defeat them. Yet, I feel like Iris does this more for Georgia rather than the other way around. Georgia actually captures Pokémon that have an advantage over or resist Dragon-types, rightly complains about Iris’ lack of Dragon-types despite aiming to be a Dragon Master and Georgia actually lives up to her goal by defeating several Dragon-types during tournaments.

If Georgia appeared more frequently and actually battled Iris (because in 2 out of the 3 tournament arcs, she’s knocked before even gets to battle Iris) we would engage with her more as a rival especially if she was someone difficult to defeat. I liked the fact that each of the main characters receiving a rival, however, in story-telling wise they fall flat as after her introductory episode Georgia doesn’t help progress Iris’ character development. Moreover, the characters’ main rivals tend to gain the most development, yet, Georgia hardly develops, she doesn’t accept her losses unless it is a Dragon-type or she blames her losses on circumstances such as the battlefield. Georgia’s pettiness and immaturity, honestly, reminds me of Harley and Ursula.

However, aside from Georgia, characters such as Drayden, Cynthia or Clair I don’t really see as rivals. Firstly, I don’t see Drayden as a rival, I’m not even sure what he’s meant to be, as Iris appears intimidated by him following their battle at the Village of Dragons and her experience at Opelucid Academy. He was the one that recommended Iris go on a journey rather than attend school. Considering, Iris is a child, being treated like this she would get the impression that Drayden doesn’t like her, which, is no wonder she is shocked when he announces his decision to choose her as his successor. In the games, they are shown to be close, as Iris affectionately refers to Drayden as “Grandpa”, I think if they transferred that relationship into the anime, it would have made Drayden’s choice of selecting Iris as his successor feel a lot more natural. 

Cynthia is definitely someone I didn’t see as a rival for Iris, however, given that Iris is a champion now that might change. However, I’ll write with the material I have, it was clear Iris looked up to Cynthia due to her ace being part Dragon-type (which may be why the writers felt the need to give her a Gible). Aside, from their battle and giving Iris advice on her relationship with Dragonite. The two hardly interact, to me Cynthia was more of an inspiration or role model for Iris to look up to.

Finally, we have Clair, who I feel is more of a mentor and role model for Iris rather than a rival. I understand the two had a battle in the BW special, however, that battle felt more like a learning experience for Iris and deepened her bond with Dragonite. To be fair, Clair is an ideal role model for Iris in comparison to Cynthia (despite being a champion) Clair actually specialises in Dragon-types and she is respected amongst other Dragon-users. Although Clair isn’t a rival (at least not in my eyes) as a mentor she helped Iris grow during their brief encounters, the fact that Clair had a cameo in Journeys, shows her contribution towards Iris’ development.

Despite, the fact, BW definitely had a plethora of rivals for the main characters a majority of them fell short, they were either annoying, hardly contributed towards the story or any development or just appeared once. It was refreshing to see, rivals introduced for goals such as a Dragon Master and a Pokémon Connoisseur, as I wasn’t sure how rivals could be implemented for such goals aside from aiming for the same goal as previous rivals. Nevertheless, Georgia was meant to be Iris’ primary rival and aside from her first appearance, she hardly contributed to Iris’ overall development. They hardly battled, Georgia hardly appeared and Georgia didn’t develop much either. All in all, the writers fell short writing a good rival for Iris.

Journeys:

I understand I’m a bit late since Episode 65 aired a few weeks ago. Like many fans, I was impressed by Iris’ growth during her absence, culminating in her becoming the Unova Champion. Although this leaves me a bit confused as to when Iris left the series, she was set to be Drayden’s successor as the Opelucid Gym Leader, now that she’s a Champion does this mean Drayden has to find an alternative successor? It kind of renders the whole homecoming arc in BW, kind of pointless. 

Drayden explains how Iris during her absence from the series continued to meet and battle with other Dragon-type trainers and alludes to the fact she’s caught a Gible (which we knew) and a Goodra, I don’t understand why they keep giving Iris these random Dragon-types that Ash has also caught. Did Iris catch Goodra in Kalos? Did she meet Drasna of the Kalos Elite Four? Anyway, what I like about this whole scene, is despite being Champion, Iris still doesn’t feel as though she has accomplished her goal of becoming a Dragon Master. Whilst, I respect the fact Iris still wants to grow as a trainer, it raises the question of what does it take to become a Dragon Master? Does it differ from person to person? 

Additionally, they’ve explained the ability Iris developed in the BW special, as an ability to read a Dragon Pokémon’s emotions. Which to be honest, I still find it a bit baffling, it's understandable for Psychic-type specialists and to some extent, Ghost-type specialists as Phoebe of the Hoenn Elite Four can apparently communicate with ghosts, but, for the sake of the story, I’ll accept it. 

I was impressed with the battle and comedy aspects of this episode with my favourite moments being the looks Emolga and Pikachu gave their trainers when they were bickering and when Iris and Ash quite literally blew the roof of the gym. I mean to be fair; it should be a requirement at this point that Gyms need an open roof in the Pokémon world just to avoid this kind of incident. 

The battle I was impressed with, subverted some of my expectations and worries, as I thought it would follow the pattern of Ash’s battle with Korrina where Gengar was swiftly defeated and Dragonite took down both of Korrina’s Pokémon. I felt bad for poor Dragonite being intimidated by Iris’ Dragonite (his glare reminds me of Harley’s Wigglytuff) and Ash being the good trainer that he is recalls Dragonite. This bit, I loved as it shows Ash’s compassion as a trainer. We had the bit we were waiting for! Ash actually using Dracovish, I feel as though Dracovish is definitely one of the weaker aspects of Ash’s character in this series as in Episode 63, aside from Water Gun, he didn’t know Dracovish’s moves or the fact he runs faster underwater (although to be fair Dracovish is a new species of Pokémon that people hardly know anything about so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt). I feel if we’d seen Ash training with Dracovish, the build-up to this battle would have been so much better and we could have seen a stronger bond between Ash and Dracovish form.

Part of me is relieved was that Dracovish didn’t go on to defeat Dragonite and Haxorus as the lack of screen-time with Dracovish could not justify that outcome. However, I’m still not satisfied with the outcome of this battle. In my previous analysis, I mentioned that I didn’t want them to pull the same stunt they did with Korrina, and what did they go and do? I understand Ash is also a Champion, however, they built up the fact Dragonite fully accepts Iris as his trainer, her Axew is now fully evolved and is her ace (as he should have been from the start!) and then they go and make her lose! 

Like Korrina, this completely undermines all of Iris’ efforts in her absence and continues my biggest gripe with Journeys being pacing. Don’t get me wrong, I love Ash and I love seeing him succeed but when they build up a character returning like this people were kind of hoping Iris would win or draw with Ash (which would at least minimize the pacing issue slightly). In my opinion, a draw would have been a more satisfying conclusion, as it would reflect on both Iris and Ash’s growth during their time apart in a more positive light. 

Conclusion:

This extended analysis has been long overdue and I think it has allowed me to elevate my opinion of Iris but due to some weird writing choices. I don’t feel that same level of attachment that I’ve felt towards other travelling companions. But writing this analysis helped me see that a lot of the hate towards her is exaggerated. As she has had some great moments and development throughout BW. One of my favourite arcs in BW, was Iris restoring her relationship with Excadrill which was one of the most poignant moments of the series.

Overall, this analysis has not only helped improve my opinion on Iris but when a character we’re meant to like is written poorly, we’re less likely to like them or engage with them as well as you would with another character. This is why I’m having such an issue with Journeys at the moment and why I needed to take a little break from it. Although, I may watch the Gary episode, just to see Infernape in action again! Along with the rest of Ash’s Pokémon!